Skip to main content

Full text of "Animato! #22"

See other formats 


The Only Magazine in America that Hasn't Put The Simpsons on the Cover! 



The A nimation Fan ’s Magazine Number Twenty Two $3.25 

A 

Beauty and the Beast 



Plus: Interviews with Independent Animator SALLY CRUIKSHANK, 
Disney Artist WALT PEREGOY, and Fleischer Animator MYRON WALDMAN; 
NICKELODEON'S NEW TOONS; GUMMI BEARS; BUGS ON BROADWAY; 

News, Reviews, and Much More! 











Animato 


Issue #22, Winter 1992 
ISSN: 1042-539X 

Evil Edit or: 

Mike Ventrella 
Hunchbacked Assistant: 
Harry McCracken 

Distributed by: 

Capital City Distribution 
2827 Perry Street 
Madison, WI 55713 

Diamond Comics Distributors 
1720 Belmont Avenue 
Baltimore, MD 21207 

Friendly Frank’s Distributors 
3990 Broadway 
Gary, IN 46408 

Heroes World Distribution 
961 Route 10 East 
Randolph, NJ 07869 


CONTRIBUTORS THIS ISSUE: 


Jerry Beck, author of Looney Tunes 
and Merrie Mélodies and cofounder of 
Streamline Pictures; 

John Cawley, who has worked in 
almost every aspect of animation and is 
author of The Encyclopedia of Cartoon 
Superstars and How to Create Anima¬ 
tion ; 

Karl Cohen, writer for Animation 
Magazine ; 

Shamus Culhane, animator/direc- 
tor and author of Animation from Script 
toScreen and Talking Animais and O ther 
People ; 

G. Michael Dobbs, the official Fleis- 
cher historian; 

Jim Fanning.animation historian 
and frequent contributor to Animato; 

Matt Hasson, video collector and 
longtime Animato contributor; 


Jim Korkis, animation historian, 
author of Cartoon Confidentialmd regu- 
lar contributor to Amazing Héros and 
Animation Magazine ; 

Harry McCracken, who has left 
his cushy job with Animato to be an editor 
at Computer Buyer magazine and who 
has written for Cinefantastique and Nemo, 
Bob Miller, regular contributor to 
Comics Scene y Comic Buyer's Guide , and 
Animation Magazine ; 

Thelma Scumm, animation "fan" 
and critic extraordinaire; 

Steve Segal, animator and director 
of films Futuropolis and Dance of the 
Stumblers; 

Thomas Shim, animation fan and 
contributor to The Biographe 

Tim Smith, animation fan, teacher, 
and writer. 


THE CRICKET GALLERY 

ANIMATION ART 



Copyright ©The Walt Disnev Cnmnanv 

A preferred dealer for Disney, Warner Brothers, Hanna-Barbera, and more. 
Cels and Drawings • Vintage and Contemporary 
Please write or call for afree catalog 


Mailing Address: 

110 Cameron Glen Drive 
Atlanta, GA 30328 


1-800-BUY CELS 


Gallery Address: 

3108 Roswell Road 
Atlanta, GA 30305 


Animato! 1 













Y ^ 



WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE 
THE ARRIVAL OF EXCITING 


ANIMATION ART FROM 



“ONE-OF-A-KIND” 

€MŒ(mm ADSTTç DFJCo 

775 LIVINGSTONE PLACE 
DECATUR, GEORGIA 30030 
Phone # (404) 377-3333 
Fax # (404) 377-6011 
BY APPOINTAIENT ONLY 


2 A ni mat o ! 



























In This Issue 


nvs;' 

14 Walt Peregoy 

Walt Peregoy, background stylist for 101 Dalmations, 
Sword in the Stone, and many sériés, discusses the importance 
of setting and the current State of animation. 
by Bob Miller 


46 Animation in the Classroom 

One teacher tells us how he uses animation in his english 
class. 

by Tim Smith 

48 Nickeldoedon's New Toons 

Reviews of Doug, Rugrats, and Ren and Stimpy. 
by Harry McCracken 


23 Sally Cruikshank 

Surrealistic animator Sally Cruikshank talks about the 
business, art, The Simpsons, and the feature she’d love to 
make. 

by Steve Segal 

30 KirkWise 

Kirk Wise, director of Beauty and the Beast and The 
Little Mermaid, discusses life at Disney, the making of the 
new feature, what films he'd love to make, and what the 
future will hold. 

by Jim Fanning 


Columns 

8 Get Animated! Industry Watch 

The animation boom and bust, Disney copying, and 
more comments on the current scene. 

by John Cawley 

11 Koko Komments 

Talking with animator Myron Waldman. 
by G. Michael Dobbs 


lAriîcles IBjgiiimlBMB 


20 Censorship in Reporting? 

Are animation reporters censoring their own news? Or 
is it just the studios cracking down? 

by Karl Cohen 


28 Beauty and the Beast Review 
A look at the new Disney feature. 

by Harry McCracken 


38 Disney’s Adventures of the Gummi Bears 
A filmography of the first three seasons. 
by Bob Miller 


52 Toons on Tape 

New Flesicher cartoons on videodisc. 
by Matt Hasson 

54 Animated Anecdotes 

Trivia bits you probably didn’t know! 
by Jim Korkis 

55 A Little Birdie Told Me 

More satiric barbs from animation’s greatest gossip. 
by Thelma Scumm 





4 Fan Mail From Some Flounder 

Readers comments. 


42 Bugs on Broadway 

Imagine seeing your favorite WB shorts on a large 
screen accompanied by a live orchestra! 

by Thomas Shim 


6 Animatorial 

A plea for help (and forgiveness). 

by Mike Ventrella 


45 Emile Cohl 

A review of the new biography of one of animation’s 
greatest pioneers. 

By Shamus Culhane 


8 Cartoon Parade 

by Jay Rath 

50 Animato Film Poil 

Your votes for favorite films. 


Animato! 3 







gl M üU lllSii^b i l||rvârdjqua^j&innfôidge, MA 02238 I MI 


grim remembered 

Reg Hartt 

Toronto, Ontario, Canada 


I greatly appreciated your Grim 
Natwick coverage. I had the pleasure of 
doing several events with Grim and en- 
joyed many hours of dialogue with him 
plus a couple of heavy drinking sessions. 

Grim was everything that, should I 
live to be 100,1 would want to be. 


WH ERE WAS THELMA? 
John Beam 

East Lansing, Michigan 


I really enjoyed the last issue. The 
Maurice Noble and Grim Natwick inter¬ 
views and subséquent Grim memories 
place #21 head and shoulders above ail 
the other issues I hâve in my library. 

I thought that Bob Miller's review of 
Captain Planet and the Planeteers was 
hilarious. Take that, Ted Turner! 

Missed though were the Film Poil 
and "A Little Birdie Told Me.” What has 
happened to Thelma Scumm anyway? 
Her biting but humorous views of the 
business hâve been a favorite of mine. 
Don't tell me she's no longer with us! 

(OK, we won't. Thelma and the Film 
Poil got bumped simply because there 
was so much good material for the last 
issue. She,of course, didnot take thistoo 
lightly.) 


FR AN KL YN FAN 
Hans Heidler 
Algonquin, Illinois 


Your last issue was good, but I must 
comment on the review of the Cari Stall- 
ing CD. 

It is a very good CD and I agréé with 
your review, but when your reviewer 
listed other excellent cartoon music di- 
rectors (Bradley, Calker, Hatley), he over- 
looked the other Wamers music master, 
Milt Franklyn. 

He was responsible for some great 
scores, including Bâton Bunny , One 
Froggy Evening , and the famous What's 
Opéra, Doc? At least conductor George 
Dougherty gives Franklyn a nod in the 
"Bugs Bunny on Broadway” performance. 


But I guess anyone who cornes in after a 
master gets overshadowed - just ask Art 
Davis! 


TWICE UPON WH1CH TIME? 
Jed Martinez 

_Floral Park, New York 


When John Cawley mentioned in 
Animato #21 that Twice Upon a Time 
was being released on video, you should 
hâve asked him what version. 

You see, I got to see it on HBO 
nearly seven years ago, and one week 
after its original airing, it got cleaned up 
for the younger audience. Most of the 
obscenitieswereexorcised. Inonescene, 
the villain voiced by Marshall Efron finds 
something in his navel and proceeds to 
eat it - ail while he's behind a screen 
taking a bath. In the redubbed version, 
he's just singing to himself instead. 

If it is being released in the "softcore” 
version, I'm not buying it.. .not even for 
the sake of that hilarious scene with Rod 
Rescueman and the Fairy Godmother. 


BARRIER SNAFL 
Mike Barrier 
Alexandria, Virginia 


A minor correction to Matthew 
Hasson's review of Bosko Video's Pri- 
vate Snafu tape in #21 : Matt says that the 
tape begins with "a printed prologue by 
Mike Barrier.” 

I agréé with Matt that the prologue 
contains "some interesting information,” 
but I didn't write it. I simply shared with 
Dave Butler information I had gathered 
about the Snafu cartoons (mainly from 
the Defense Audiovisual Agency’s files.) 
Dave deserves crédit for the prologue as 
well as for general excellence of the tape. 


TINY TOONS CORRECTION 
Paul Dini 

Los Angeles, California 


Thanks to Dave Mackey for his de- 
tailed and generally excellent épisode 
guide to Tiny Toons! For the sake of 
historical accuracy however, I feel com- 
pelled to point out that the Li 7 Sneezer 
épisode was written in collaberation by 


Sherry Stoner and my self and not S tephen 
Langford as the on-screen crédits claimed. 
Steve and I teamed up on ToBleep Or Not 
To Bleep and somehow the writer crédits 
for those two cartoons got switched. 
There's no way Dave could hâve known 
that of course so I thought I'd straighten it 
out here. 

Looking forward to the 1991 season 
update! 


MORE TINY TOONS NOTES 
Brad VValker 
Santa Rosa, California 


The Tiny Toons épisode guide was 
excellent. I think TTA is one of the best 
shows on TV this season for kids and 
adults and I’m looking forward to the few 
épisodes I've missed, particularly TT: 
Music Télévision . 

In general I hold with Dave Mackey's 
comments - I'm going to try Bill and 
Ted's Excellent Adventures after his 
recommendation - but there are some 
comments I am moved to make: 

I don't know how Dave can give 
such a high rating to The Anvil Chorus ; 
Plucky does nothing to deserve this pun- 
ishment. And this in the same issue 
where Harry McCracken complains about 
Roger Rabbit's lack of humanity. 

The Fields ofHoney entry gave me 
the most problems. Honey and Bosko as 
seen here are not the same characters 
seen every night on Nickelodeon. As 
Plucky says of Honey, "Is she a bug? A 
dog? What?” If Tiny Toons wants to 
prétend Honey was never a stereotypical 
"pickaninny,” that's one thing but they 
changed her character as well. Honey 
was much more passive and reactive in 
the Harman-Ising shorts. She depended 
on Bosko to rescue her (and considering 
how effective Bosko generally was, she 
had some hope). She never sprouted 
Betty Boop and Harpo costumes at the 
drop of a hat. That was retro-fitted to 
make her a suitable "prototype” for Babs. 
Fields ofHoney is a well done cartoon, 
but it smacks too much of revisionism. 
Oh well, at least they didn't bring back 
Chimp and Zee. 


4 Animato! 
















Actually the femme fatale in The 
Return ofPluck Twacy was not based on 
the Super Snooper duck but Mata Hari 
Pigeon (short beak) firom the wartime 
cartoon Plane Dcffy ( Mr Hitler is a stinker? ! ' 
Dot’s no military secret!” ”Yah, effery- 
body knowsdot! H ). The cartoon isalmost 
a literal remake of The Great Piggy Bank 
Robbery - to the point where kids who 
never saw the original won’t know what's 
going on. (Tickle Puss? Fiat BottomT) 
The whole Peter Lorre train sequence 
goes on too long. 

Sorry, Dave but The Roches weren't 
giventhatmaterial;it'stheirown. Iheard 
them perform it more than a decade ago 
on Dr. Demento. 

The voice of the evil ringmaster in 
Sawdust and Toonsil was pattemed after 
Ronald Reagan. 

The storyline and character design 
firom Starting F rom Scratch are a takeoff 
on Amblin's An American Tail. 

Keep up the good work! 


SAY NO TOANVILS 
Donald Alan Webster 
Hapeville, (ieorgia 


I was pleased that you published 
Dave Mackey's filmography to Tiny 
Toons Adventures, but I was surprised 
by some of his ratings... 

For stars for The Anvil Chorusl that 
was one of the most awful cartoons on 
this show and any other! Howcanany- 
one be "justiftably proud” of this mess? 
What was wrong with it was pointed out 
in the cartoon itself. When Plucky reads 
the script itsays M An anvil falls on Plucky. 
Two anvils fall on Plucky. A giant anvil 
falls on Plucky.” There is no plot and 
barely a premise. It is just the same bad 


gag repeated over and over again. One 
anvil falling on Plucky might be funny 
under certain circumstances but 40 anvils 
is 39 anvils too many. 

Five stars for Fields of Honey was 
also undeserved although it was a much 
better cartoon than The Anvil Chorus. 



Fields had some good scenes such as 
Babs' attempts to get money out of Mon¬ 
tana Max, but the climax was flawed. 
The Honey cartoons were just not as 
falling down hilarious enough to justify 
the way the audience in the cartoon was 
reacting. In fact, Honey was never a 
major cartoon character, but merely a 
racist rip-off of Minnie Mouse. Fields of 
Honey tried to obscure this by giving 
them animal ears and by having Plucky 
speculate that they were some kind of 


bug, making this cartoon, on top of every- 
thing else, dishonest. 

On the other hand, Mackey was right 
to give four stars to C Fiat or B Sharp? 
and Slugfest. Some others were not too 
far off. 


WHAT IS CLASSIC DISNEY? 
Ross Care 

Lancaster, Pennsylvania 


As a classic Disney buff, I was inter- 
ested in the Harry McCracken review of 
The Little Mermaid. I know most criti- 
cism is subjective opinion, especially ani¬ 
mation criticism, but I don't see how the 
writer could even compare the visual 
style of the new film to Cinderella. 

Visually and story-development- 
wise, Cinderella put the Disney studio 
back on the right trackand paved the way 
for the renaissance of feature animation 
of the early '50s. 

I thought just the opposite of 
McCracken: that The Little Mermaid 
had the story development and emotional 
impact back on the right track, but that it 
didn’t corner near the visual style and 
color styling of Cinderella and the ensu- 
ing features. 

Little Mermaid reminded me more 
of watered down Fleischer than of classic 
Disney, particularly in the backgrounds 
and color styling. 

Ifeel Disney reached a stylisticpeak 
in the 1950-1959 features that will proba- 
bly never be equalled or recaptured, even 
by the new Disney studio itself. For pure 
throw-away technique and naturalness of 
human animation, probably no animation 
will ever surpass the ’50s trilogy of Cin¬ 
derella, Alice in Wonderland, and Pe¬ 
ter Pan. 


€&A3$mEGAM BACKÏSSUÉS SUBSCKIPTIONS 

Here’sour new policy on classified The following back issues are still Subscriptîons are for four issues. 

Ad$ :i; âvaUable 

V Tiv.. : ■ msas» f! t*Hn ■ perr .... ' : : : x - : Sï3 - . -:m . 

pals, trading tapes, or otherwlse en- #17: Ralph Baksht interview; Chi- We apologlze toourCanadiansub- 

gaging in nonprofit activities. nese Animation; Who Framed Roger scriberswho hâve topay extra but with 

llliw businesses and people wishing Ràbbif, Jack Hannah interview the recent increases in postal rates in 

toseü things, thecost is 15 cents a word. #20: BugsBunny’sSOth; Dilljus- the LÎJi., we hâve switched to 3rd dass 

ÜlFordisplayads.thepriceis$75 for tice interview; Robotech\ Pinocchio ; bulk mailings in the U.S. wbîch helps 
a fui] page ad, $40 for a half page, and Gulltver's Travels. us to keep the cover price down. 

$20 for a quarter page. Note: tbese #21: Maurice Noble iuteryiew; ; rieasemakeaIlchecksandmoney ; 

prices are likely to rlse soon as our RescuersDown t/uJer review and inter- orders payable to Anlmato. Be sure to 

circulation keeps improving. Send a view with director Mike Gabriel; Grim indicate with which issue you wantyour 

$A$E for information. ; ;; v : Natwick||i^ irêohs guide; :; 5^!. : ' ?: ?;f phscription to 


Animato! 5 









ANIMATORIAL 


by Mike Vent relia 

Important éditorials are written in the 
third person which makes them sound as if 
they are being proclaimed from ahigh in 
much the same way Kings or Gods talk to 
us common folk: “We are not amused blah 
blah blah...” I hope you will forgive me for 
not engaging in that particular tradition for 
this one éditorial because, well, there* s not 
much we here. 

You see, Harry (who was we before I 
became we again) and I used to get a 
chuckle every now and then by some letter 
addressed to “Animato, Subscription De¬ 
partment” as if deep in the recesses of our 
3x5 post office box overlooking scenic 
Harvard Square there was a subbasement 
filled with hundreds of employées just 
anxious to fill every subscription order 
with a curt “Yes. Sir, Mr. McCracken! ” and 
‘TU get right on it, Mr. Ventrella!” 

Fat chance. 

You see, to tell the awfiil truth, Ani- 
mato is still after ail these years primarily 
a one person operation. 

* When Harry took over from me as 
editor a few years ago, he vastly improved 
Animâto. He enlarged it to regular maga¬ 
zine size, got it professionally printed in- 
stead of xeroxed, added color, new writers, 
and generally made Animai o into a maga¬ 
zine that, to ail outward appearances, is as 
professional as any other small magazine. 
But he really did it ail by himself. And for 
no pay. 

He organized advertisers, laid out 
pages, wrote articles, dealt with distribu- 
tors and managed just about every aspect of 
the magazine. This took a lot of time, and 
Animato did not corne out quarterly like we 
had originally hoped. We were lucky to 
hâve three issues a year, but we felt that 
quality was more important than quantity. 

I foolishly never really fully appre- 
ciated the amount of time and effort it took 
to put together an issue until H any quit to 
accept a job with Computer Buying Maga¬ 
zine that actually pays him money for being 
an editor. I had been handling the mailing 
chores, the bookkeeping and back orders 
during that time but otherwise kept a low 
profile. I had my own jobs to do and other 
projects I had started. 

However I did not want Animato to 
die. I agreed to keep it going by taking over 
as editor. Isetwhatlthoughtwasarealistic 


cover date of August and got to work. 

Fat chance. 

So let me begin by apologizing to ail 
of you who hâve written saying “Hey, I 
subscribed a while ago and never received 
my summer issue!” or “My lawyer will be 
contacting you!” or “You may hâve al- 
ready won a fabulous trip with Ed MacMa- 
hon to beautiful downtown Las Vegas!” 
No! Wait! Not the last one. Sorry. 

I hope that this issue will make it up to 
some of you. The Beauty and the Beast 
articles that were supposed to be real treats 
preceding the film by months will now be 
dated Other news is already old. Sigh. 
Live and leam. 

Like Harry, I hâve a real job too. 
Animato is a hobby. It barely makes enough 
money to last to the next printing. Most of 
the money gets poured back into things like 
color covers and printer ribbons. 

In any event, here is the thrust of this 
éditorial, which can be summed up in one 
word: 

HELP! 

I would like very much to make Ani¬ 
mato a regular occurrence like the chang- 
ing of the seasons or the announcement of 
anew Ralph B akshi project. rdlikeittobe 
found at every newsstand and in every 
home. I’d like to pay the staff and the 
writers. 

But I need help. 

So I’m placing a help wanted ad right 
here in the éditorial. If you think you can 
fulfill any of these positions, drop me a 
line. Mention your expérience and tell me 
how to get in touch with you. You don’t 
even hâve to live in the Boston area; most 
of the work is done over the phone and by 
the mails any way. And maybe, if I fill ail 
these spots,we can be a real magazine! (By 
the way, if reading this aloud, you should 
pronounce “a real magazine” in the same 
way that Pinocchio says “a real boy ! ” when 
speaking to the Blue Fairy.) 

Here's what we need: 

Tvplsts : We need people who can 
type articles into IBM compatible formats 
so I can plug ‘em into Pagemaker. (I spent 
a lot of time with this issue typing contribu¬ 
tions.) I also would very much like to do a 
“Best Of * magazine so I need people who 
can type in old articles from our pre-desk- 
top publishing days. 

Graphie Artists : Primarily I need 
people who can do cover layouts and ad 


layouts. Especially if you can do çplor 
séparation. 

■Writers: I can always accept people 
willing to write reviews of new shows and 
films. Just go ahead and submit your 
comments ! I may not print them, but if you 
can write and know what you’re writing 
about, throw me a sample. I am hoping to 
add a section to Animato called Reader’s 
Reviews, where you can review new TV 
shows and theatrical films and such. There 
may even be more than one review of a 
particular show, but I believe people will 
really like this feature, and if you’re really 
good, I’m sure soon 1*11 be assigning you 
stories for future issues. 

An Advertlslng Manager: I need 
someone who can solicit ads, make sure 
they are submitted in time, and paid soon 
thereafter. (This position will probably 
become the first paid position based on 
commissions). 

A DLstributor Liaison : I am certain 
that if we merely try we can find magazine 
distributors around the country willing to 
take on poor little Animato. I fmd it hard to 
believe that a newsstand that cames such 
well read publications like Sunflower Seed 
Grower’s Digest and Nailbiters Wee/dy 
could say no to us. 

A Lihrarian : This person would hâve 
the job of keeping photos, drawings and 
any other materials that may be of use to us 
in future issues and to fmd things when 
needed. (“I need a drawing of Daffy Duck 
in Quackbusters, a photo of Walt Kelly 
drawing the cherubs in Fantasia and an 
autographed picture of Huckleberry Hound 
by Tuesday!”) This would also require 
calling the publicity departments of the 
studios for materials when needed. 

A Printer : I hope our current printer 
doesn’t read this, but obviously if we can 
fmd a loyal reader who has a connection to 
some printing facility and is willing to 
discount a poor helpless magazine trying to 
get on its feet, why, I wouldn’t say no. 

If you hâve any other talents I haven’t 
thought of that may help make Animato a 
real magazine (remember to pronounce 
that right), please do not hesitate to send off 
a letter. 

So once more, my apologies for those 
who hope for a more regular publishing 
schedule and my thanks for those of you 
who will be willing to help make this corne 
true. 


6 Animato! 













Ç£*é.STKoiKA' 
Ain)P wiTh . 

|T, GUASNOST/ 



0c*r Poft. soMt, 
| 1"6 NOT WÉ.LCÛMÊ. 



foRMtft KGB A&ÊNT BORIS Vêusin 
e>AO£Nov/ MAS fOUNP Mis LiPÉ. 
SHATTeRÊI?. Hl^ 

LONG - TlMÉ- 
J,U/£ - IN) 
pRl£NP, 

NATASHA 
AfPeARec 
|N 'THÉ- 
•‘ Pt AV 6ûV 
UJ0M6N of, 

'THB 

I^StlÊ' / 




BAP£NOV, Ou< of A Jo6, PE.AR.S 

t><scc©s«^R£ of M'S PAs-r p££PS. 





































































Get Animated! Industry Watch 

News and Commentary 
by John Cawley 


mmompoix 

Disney recently announced they had 
made an arrangement to release com¬ 
puter animated features produced by 
Pixar. On one level this was good news: 
A major studio was finally backing a 
computer animated feature. The down 
sideisthatit is another sign that studios 
would rather buy product than develop it. 

One of the driving forces behind 
Pixar was John Lasseter, a former Disney 
animator. In the late ’80s, Disney 
decided they were tired of ail the press 
Las se ter and Pixar were getting with 
their computer shorts so began devel- 
oping their own department. The end 
resuit was Oil Spot and Lipstick. The 
short received generally good notices and 
some awards at festivals. Rather than 
moveforward with this direction, Disney 
has taken the more modem way out... the 
buy-out. 

Perhaps the most shocking business 
trend of the '80s was the taking over of 
one company by another. Most of these 
were done for the purpose of either greed 
or an attempt to centralize. In Holly¬ 
wood, the resuit was a lot of executive 
shuffling, studios collapsing, and esca- 
lating prices. 

Following in this grand tradition, the 
giants of animation are doing the same - 
-only with properties. Today’s econ- 
omy sadly makes it more economical to 
buy properties than develop them. 
Purchase the Muppets and you hâve in¬ 
stant income revenues. Start from scratch 
and you could end up with nothing more 
than a minor film or TV sériés and 
moderate merchandising. 

The majors in this battle are Disney, 
Universal, Wamers and Spielberg. 
Disney touts its character strengths and 
has been seeking other outside properties 
to purchase. Universal has made ar¬ 
rangements with Harvey to handle 
Casper and other Harvey characters. 
(Meanwhile Harvey keeps adding out¬ 
side characters to their comics line.) 
Universal also acquired many rights to 
Rocky and Bullwinkle for use in their 


studio tour parks. Spielberg seemstobe 
content borrowing or converting charac¬ 
ters. 

Hanna-Barbera is now owned by the 
ubiquitous Ted Turner. Even though it 
will cost hundreds of millions to pur¬ 
chase the studio and properties, it will be 
well worth it to him. The Flintstones, 
Yogi Bear,HuckleberryHound,Scooby- 
Doo and others are strong names in TV 
and merchandise. For a while though no 
one was quite certain who would take the 
plunge. 



A key suitor had been Universal, 
who had already done some deals with 
H-B such as the animation attraction at 
Universal’s Florida studio tour. Another 
suitor had been the Disney studio. Disney 
previously had been vehement in the 
déniai of interest. However, this was 
from the studio that claimed they would 
not buy a TV station four weeks before 
they purchased KHJ-TV (Channel 9 in 
Los Angeles); announced at a stock 
holder meeting that no major animated 
features would be released on home video 
during the Spring period only to hâve the 
press materials on the Spring release of 
Little Mermaid put in the mail a few 
days later, and more recently stated that 
there were definitely no plans to release 
Fantasia on video in 1991 only to an- 
nounce one week later that the film would 


be released in November of 1991. It has 
recently corne to light that Disney has 
had several talks with the owners of H- 
B. AllegedlyoneofDisney’sdemands is 
that the H-B characters would be totally 
pulled out of ail MCA/Universal deal- 
ings. 

A third suitor was Hallmark Cards! 
Obviously not wanting to miss out on the 
character auction action, Hallmark had 
expressed interest in acquiring the char¬ 
acters. 

So what becomes of the characters 
now? One cannot forget the sale 
several years ago of Filmation. Thenew 
owners merely wanted the film library 
to exploit in syndication and video. No 
new productions were desired and the 
studio was shut down with only a few 
hours notice to employées. 

Will Turner spend the money, time 
and expérience to fully re-develop these 
characters? Or will the characters sim- 
ply become more fodder for the 
merchandise departments? Or will they 
just go to jail and not be able to pass 
“go”? 

THREE BOOMS AND 

. THEIR mwmMM 

The release to home video of Twice 
Upon a Time was a reminder of the 
recent “animation booms” and how they 
differed. Like most over night suc- 
cesses, the current animation boom 
actually took a long time. Those who 
hâve followed the boom since it began 
in the late '70s may be disappointed to 
fmd out where it has ended. 

In the late '70s, animation looked 
like it was ready to boom. Disney had 
spent almost a decade rebuilding its ani¬ 
mation department. At the last moment 
many of their key people walked out. 
This exodus, headed by Don Bluth, 
brought animation into focus in the 
press. Suddenly people were interested 
in hearing about animation and new 
blood was producing animated features. 

This boom promised to bring a more 
varied look to animation. Bluth was tired 


8 Animalo! 








ofthe M kiddie movie” attitude at Disney 
and wanted more of the strong heart and 
drama found in the original Disney 
classics. Martin Rosen, who felt ani- 
mated films could be as serious as real 
movies, had done fairly well with 
Watership Down and was preparing The 
Piague Dogs. Rankin-Bass jumped on 
the bandwagon and touted two serious 
productions based on major fantasy 
works (Flight of the Dragons and The 
Last Unicorn). Even George Lucas 
expressed interest in 
stretching the bounda- 
ries of animation past 
children’s entertain¬ 
ment with Twice Upon 
a Time. Meanwhile, 
the original. Ralph 
Bakshi, continued his 
fight to legitimize 
“adult” animated fea- 
tures. 

Of the few films 
that finally saw com- 
pletion, only a handful 
actually got theatrical 
releases in the US. 

Those that did, gener- 
ally received mixed re- 
views. The most re- 
membered feature of 
the period is probably 
Bluth’s Secret of 
NIMH. However, even 
it did not perform well 
at the box office. In 
some ways this was 
the ‘‘boom” that never 
was. It was merely a 
wannabe boom. 

The Care Bears Movie was the 
real kick start to the animation boom. 
Producedby Nelvana, whohadalsofailed 
in the wannabe boom with their Rock & 
Rule (aka Ring of Power), The Care 
Bears Movie performed as well as an 
average Disney release. 

The press showed equal interest in 
this kiddie merchandise boom, but via 
critical articles. The studios saw green 
and went with it anyway. After a flood 
of toy based films, this mini-boom 
fizzled quickly due to the lackluster box 
office of the films (and not because of 
the cry of outraged children’s groups). 
This theatrical boom was equal ed by a 
similar syndicated TV boom that contin¬ 


ues to this day. 

Finally, one of the original boom 
participants, Don Bluth, coupled with 
Steven Spielberg with the resuit being An 
American Tail. By breaking ail box 
office records for animation, it de- 
throned Disney as the sole big box office 
animation producer. However, unlike 
Bluth’s belief that the success of the 
classic Disneys were due to a more dra- 
matic, adult story, Tail offered 
Spielberg*s vision of classic Disney be¬ 


ing a children’s film. 

Equally strong box office for 
Disney’s Oliver and Company, 
Spielberg/Lucas/Bluth’s Land Before 
Time and the critical and public accep¬ 
tance of Who Framed Roger Rabbit 
cementeü ai. lation into the movie pro¬ 
ducer’s psyché, inis new boom seemed 
to peak with the promotional and box 
office firenzy surrounding TheLittle Mer- 
maid. 

Sadly, this new boom is actually 
doser to the mini-boom than the wan¬ 
nabe boom of the late 70s. Though the 
number of animated productions is up, 
most of them are aimed more towards 
children or merchandised (well known) 
properties. There is none of the experi¬ 


mental attitude found in the ’70s. Studio 
accountants seemed to hâve leamed their 
lesson in the mini-boom and are piaying 
itsafe. 

Such films as Twice Upon a Time 
and The Piague Dogs might find a more 
willing audience today due to the higher 
interest in animation. But they probably 
wouldn’t gamer a big audience since 
both are geared more towards adults than 
children. Some State that Disney’s 
Beauty and the Beast is an attempt to 
woo adult audiences 
with a more mature han- 
dling of the material. 
But any film with a 
bumbling sidekick to 
help the villain and talk- 
ing fumiture seems to 
becrying out more tb 
the children’s and mer¬ 
chandising markets. 

As the boom con¬ 
tinues more and more 
projects are announced 
based ’ on fairy taies, 
children’s books and 
popular characters or 
stars. Well, maybe not 
ail. Ralph Bakshi is 
still kicking around. 
However his newest 
entry, Cool World, will 
(according to a studio 
représentative) “defi- 
nitely not be Rated R.” 
Even Ralph seems to 
hâve gone the safe 
route. 

Though there is no end of new titles 
scheduled to appear in theaters over the 
next several months, and though new 
projects are being discussed^ the boom 
has settled a bit. Missing from the past 
several years of frantic activity is anima¬ 
tion work. 

Hyperion (Rover Dangerfield) let 
their employées go in the late spring. 
Kroyer (Ferngully) released their staff 
in midsummer. Both are hoping to begin 
work on new projects and plan to bring 
their talent back as soon as possible. 

Sinbad (announced from Franck En¬ 
tertainment to be directed by John Lan- 
dis)hasbeenhalted in production due to 
funding difficulties. A situation that has 


\ 



Animato! 9 




occurred several times in this film’s 
history. Family Dog released ail their 
U.S. staff opting to hâve the work fin- 
ished in Canada by Nelvana. 

What this means is that for the first 
time in several years, there is animation 
talent available. Studios are no longer 
hâve to fight wage wars to fmd talent. 
And with the closing of these major proj- 
ects, some top talent is once again avail¬ 
able. Will this mean the studios still 
with work will begin building stronger 
crews by releasing those deemed “not” as 
strong as the now available talent? 

Even Disney is thinning its ranks, 
citing an “austerity” program. One 
executive stated that in the current mar¬ 
ket, the studio couldn’t afford to main- 
tain a staff of artists that weren’t fully 
needed or unable to keep up with the 
demands of the industry. Even individu- 
als under contract hâve been reported let 

go- 

Many hope that the release of fea- 
tures in the Fall will prove successful 
and create continued interest in the 
genre. Hyperion has already put many of 


its workers on an “unpaid” contract in 
which the worker refuses work ffom 
other studios while waiting to corne back 
to Hyperion. However, they are only 
paid when actually working at Hyperion. 

Too early to déclaré it “over,” the 
busthashit its first sag. The future now 
rides on how successfully at the box 
office the next wave of features is. 

ALL THUMBS 

In the early ’80s it was suddenly “in” 
to do werewolf movies and several 
popped up at once. Then there was the 
recent rush to bring Robin Hood to the 
screen as several studios battled to be the 
“major” release. Nextis the mad dash 
for vampire films with no less than half 
a dozen planned by some of thebiggest 
names in the business. 

Animation seems to follow similar 
trends. Disney, alone, is notorious for 
announcing projects similar to other 
studios* previous announcements. For 
example, when Bluth announced he was 
beginning development on Beauty and 
theBeast, Disney instantly announced 


they would do a version. More 
recently, Rich Entertainment (who re- 
ceived feature funding from ex-Bluth 
funder Goldcrest) announced a string of 
features that included Swan Lake. A 
week later Disney announced they were 
working on a feature with the sametitle. 
(To be fair to Disney, the studio an¬ 
nounced in the ’50s it was working on a 
version of Beauty and the Beast.) 

The current hot property in anima¬ 
tion seems to indicate studios are 
starting to think small, for the newest 
animated fad is Thumbelina. Sullivan 
Bluth has had Thumbelina in produc¬ 
tion since early this year. However two 
other studios are currently in pre-pro- 
duction on it. Both Hyperion and 
Bagdasarian(TheChipmunks) are rap- 
idly trying to get their features into 
production. 

With the gigantic sélection of chil- 
dren’s stories available to convert, it 
seems amazing that studios would com- 
pete on such a deadly level. The only 
reason to do so would be an attempt to 
squash another studio’s project. 



Seeking and oelling fine animation art e>\nce ’34 
Free catalog available 

Vioiting NJ? Make our new gallery in Red 3ank 
your fi rot stop! 


For more information, pleaoe phone/FAX us at 
(903) 342-3439 



O O O 

BBS 


10 Animato! 
































«OKO 

KOMMF.NTS 

A FLEISCHER STUDIOS COLUMN BY G. MICHAEL DOBBS 

Reminiscing with Myron Waldman 


We ail know the panthéon of Anima¬ 
tion Gods.. .at Wamers, there were Jones, 
Clampett, Freleng.. .at MGM, there were 
Harmon and Ising and then Avery.. .at 
UPA, there was Hubley.. .but what about 
Fleischer? Who made ail of those great 
cartoons? Who were the guiding hands? 

Well, we can’t give Dave Fleischer 
ail the crédit. Dave was many things to 
many people. To some, he was one of the 
best gag men in the business, and to 
others he was a just high-priced execu¬ 
tive. 

Dave did add to story development, 
but I’ve never heard anyone say he ever 
designed characters or worked on a story- 
board like many other cartoon directors. 
Most people say he couldn’t draw, al- 
though people sympathetic to Dave’s 
memory do say he was an artist. 

Dave was very interested in the 
soundtrack of the cartoon, and did direct 
the recording sessions, working closely 
with voice actors Mae Questel and Jack 
Mercer and supervising the composition 
of the music track. After his time at 
Fleischer Studios, Dave had a lengthy 
career directing cartoon at Columbia Pic- 
tures, doing story editing and spécial ef- 
fects in Hollywood. 

And Max can’t take full crédit ei- 
ther. After the the coming of sound, Max, 
originally an artist and animator, had 
agreed with his brother Dave to stay out 
of the production end of Fleischer Stu¬ 
dios. Max’s domain was the business 
side of the studio. This agreement had 
less to do «with a natural division of labor 
and had far more to do with the relation- 
ship between the eldest and youngest 
sibling of the Fleischer family. 

Max was far more than a business¬ 


man, unlike, for instance, Fred Quimby 
at MGM. Max’s contributions were 
many. He had developed the rotoscope 
and the Out of the Inkwell sériés, edited 
and produced three documentaries, ex- 
perimented with synchronized sound be- 
fore Disney, brought Popeye to the stu¬ 
dio, developed the three-dimension pro- 
cess and pushed for the move into feature 
production. Max did not attend many 
story conférences (although I hâve seen a 
script for one proposed cartoon covered 
with his notes in red pencil), and he didn’t 
supervise daily production. 

Then how did the classic Popeye, 
Betty Boop, Out of the Inkwell and Su- 
perman shorts get made? 

For those of us who watched car¬ 
toons a little more closely than other film 
enthusiasts, it’s easy to tell the différence 
between a Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny and 
aFriz Freleng Bugs Bunny. There’s little 
difficulty in picking aTex Avery Droopy 
from one not directed by Avery. With the 
Fleischer cartoons, the ever-present di¬ 
rectorial crédit of Dave Fleischer has 
assured anonymity for the many talented 
animators who actually did do the direct¬ 
ing. 

Well, this column is going to be an 
unabashed love letter to one of the direc¬ 
tors of animation at the Fleischer Studio 
who was indeed responsible for so many 
wonderful moments in animation. Few 
of the people who did directly create the 
Fleischer style, look and sound are alive 
today to take well-deserved bows. 

The gentleman who is the subject of 
this column is thankfully very alive and 
active. I first Myron Waldman in 1977 at 
Hal Seeger Productions in Manhattan. 
Seeger, a former Fleischer employée him- 


self, had a busy animation operation in 
the '60s and ’70s, and Myron was one of 
his directors. Myron took me into a back 
room and regaled me with stories about 
his time at Fleischer. 

During a good part of the interview I 
was attempting to figure out just how old 
he was as he looked no more than 55. 
Perhaps animation keeps one youthful as 
Myron was bom in 1908 and started at the 
Fleischer Studios in 1930 after he had 
graduated from the Fine and Applied Arts 
program at the Pratt Institute. He started , 
as an opaquer and then moved into the 
inking department. After winning a stu¬ 
dio compétition, Myron was promoted to 
the in-betweening department and from 
there received a chance to animate. 

Myron had grown up watching car¬ 
toons and has told me the silent Ko-Ko 
the Clown cartoons were among his fa¬ 
vorites. It was a real thrill for him to 
actually get to animate Ko-Ko, although 
the studio’s silent star had a limited run in 
the sound era. Myron’s style of humor is 
centered around whimsy and gentleness. 
Certainly he could put over a rough- 
house gag in a Popeye short as well as 
anyone could, but given his preferences 
heliked sentiment. Iaskedhimonceifhe 
had ever seen Ralph Bakshi's Lord of 
the Rings, and he replied that he didn’t 
care for the horror aspects of the work and 
had avoided seeing it. 

Knowing this, it’s easy to see his 
influence on the Popeye shorts. The first 
appearances of Popeye showed the po- 
tential, but little else, of the lovable char- 
acter who had emerged by the mid-Thir- 
ties. Myron helped the character change 
from a slapstick streetfighter, which meant 
the studio was actually more faithful to 


Animato! 11 




E.C.Segar’s comic strip original. In De- 
pression America, Popeye was a perfect 
cartoon Symbol for the hope of the little 
guy triumphing over fantastic odds, which 
undoubtedly accounted for his popularity 
with audiences overshadowing even that 
of Mickey Mouse. 

Myron worked extensively on the 
Betty Boop cartoons, and told me that 
when he had to animate A Language AU 
My Own (1935), in which Betty travels to 
Japan,hedid a little research. 

Betty was quite popular in Japan, 
and Myron was concemed that when 
Betty danced none of her movements 
would be offensive to the Japanese audi¬ 
ence. So he consulted with some Japa¬ 
nese exchange students to make sure noth- 
ing would be considered vulgar 
or rude. 

Myron created Betty’s little 
white and black dog, Pudgy, in 
1934 to add an additional story 
element to the sériés. Betty’s 
cartoons underwent a graduai 
évolution from the anything- 
goes surreal atmosphère of the 
early '30s to a sort of musical 
situation comedy by the end of 
the decade. Pudgy was fre- 
quently the star of some of the 
later Boops, such as Not Now 
(1936) in which he has a night- 
time rumble with a loud cat. 

Myron receives no royalties 
from any of the current merchandising 
which features Pudgy, a condition com- 
mon to the animation industry. 

One of the least-remembered, but 
beautiful examples of Myron’s work was 
Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy (1941). 
Myron characterizes this two-reel spé¬ 
cial as an “oooh-ahhh picture.” Because 
of its sentiment, audiences would first 
murmur “oooh” and then sigh “ahhh.” 
This film was released as a Christmas 
spécial and is quite faithful to the tone and 
look of the original Johnny Gruelle sto- 
ries. It was successful enough that Para- 
mount later had the successor to the Fleis- 
cher Studios, Famous Studios, do two 
follow-up shorts. 

Perhaps no two cartoon efforts could 
be as different as the Raggedy Ann spé¬ 
cial and the Fleischer Superman shorts. 
Myron animated on two of the sériés, one 
of which is a favorite of mine, The Billion 
Dollar Limited (1942). Myron enjoyed 


working on these cartoons, although he 
has told me they were indeed work! The 
animators had to adapt to a different style 
of movement; one far more realistic than 
in the Popeye or Boops shorts, and My¬ 
ron enjoyed the challenge. 

Myron was an something of an icono- 
clast at the Fleischer Studio. He didn’t 
approve of the management policies of 
the company conceming the strike in 
1937. Hefoughtagainstthesexismofthe 
industry by encouraging Lillian Fried¬ 
man, a pioneer woman animator. Amaz- 
ingly, he survived and prospered at the 
studio despite having run-ins with the 
inner circle of employées who surrounded 
Max Fleischer. 

He hated the “Stone Age” sériés 



which ran for one year and was sort of a 
proto-type for the Flintstones 20 years 
later. To show his displeasure with the 
cartoons, he walked intoDave Fleischer’s 
office with his copy of the latest “Stone 
Age” script at the end of a stick. Fleischer 
asked him what he was doing and Myron 
replied the script smelled! 

World War II interrupted his career 
in animation, as Myron served in the 
Army, and when he retumed he went 
back to work with many of his old col- 
leagues at what was now the Famous 
Studio. There he worked on Screen Songs 
(with the famous Bouncing Bail), Pop¬ 
eye, Little Lulu and Casper shorts. 

In the many wonderful conversa¬ 
tions I’ve had with Myron over the years 
he al ways repeated that he “wanted to do 
more.” Andhedid. He created a “novel 
with out words,” entitled Eve which was 
a critical and Financial success when it 
was published in 1943, and he did the 


artwork for a popular post-war Sunday 
comic strip, Happy the Humbug . He ap- 
peared on télévision in the 1950s with his 
“Try A Line” drawing act in which he 
create a sketch after an audience member 
drew a line or figure. He’s even acted in 
a commercial for Asian-style noodles! 

In the ’60s and ’70s, he worked on a 
number of animated télévision sériés and 
commercials including the revival of Ko- 
Ko the Clown, a bittersweet expérience 
as he wanted to do the new version with 
as much imagination as the original but 
was hobbled by a very limited budget. 

The pilot film is indeed a nostalgie 
treat with Ko-Ko being drawn by Max 
and then proceeding to get into trouble. 
The short was the last show business 
appearance by Max Fleischer 
who Myron remembered as 
having dyed his hair for the 
occasion. 

Today, Myron is semi-re- 
tired. He has too active a mind 
to just stop after a lifetime of 
creating, and he is doing the 
artwork for a sériés of limited 
édition collector’s cels of 
Popeye. The work he is doing 
today still sparkles with the 
same charm he brought to his 
Fleischer work 50 years ago. 

Some of today’s anima¬ 
tion he loves and some.. .well. 
. .When I asked him what he 
thought of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, 
he said they had done it ail 50 years ago. 
Ail of the basic technology and tech¬ 
niques for combining animation and live 
action had been used by the Fleischer 
Studio and others, years ago. Myron 
noted the différence was Roger Rabbit 
had a budget which dwarfed those of the 
production he ever animated. Just imag¬ 
ine what might hâve happened if people 
such as Myron had been given the money 
and freedom to pursue their own visions. 

Last October, Myron and Shamus 
Culhane were honored at the annual Ot¬ 
tawa Animation Festival. As Mark Langer 
of Carleton University introduced these 
two men at the screening of Fleischer 
cartoons at the National Center for the 
Arts, the audience rose and delivered a 
thunderous standing ovation. It was won¬ 
derful to see people whose work has been 
almost anonymous receive a bit of the 
acclaim they deserve. 


12 Animato! 



Elv What's Up Doc? 



% WARNER BROS., INC. 


©C ùt&BK B*C* 


Why, it’s another Fine Toon Company! 

Fine Toon Art Exchange announces the opening of Fine Toon Cartoon 
Art Gallery, Houston’s only artgallery dedicated to animation and 
comic strip art. 

When in Houston, corne by and see ali your old friends: Bugs, Mickey, 
Woody, Yogi and many, many, more. 

If you can’t stop by, call, or send us a list of the art work you are 
looking for—we specialize in ali types of animation and comic strip art. 

If you are selling your art, please contact us about our consignment 
program. 


Fine Toon Cartoon Art Gallery, Inc. 
2427 Bissonnet 
Houston, Texas 77005 

(713) 522-6499 
(713) 522-6501 FAX 




CARTOON ART 











by Bob Miller 

While cartoon characters are brought 
to life by the animator and his assistants, 
these characters need a place to live, and 
it is up to the background stylist to pro¬ 
vide that world. 

One of animation’s most renowned 
background stylists is WaltPeregoy, who 
designed the worlds for Disney’s 101 
Dalmatians, Sword in the Stone and 
Windwagon Smith. For six years (1968- 
1973) he headed Hanna-Barbera’s back¬ 
ground department, styling such sériés as 
The Périls of Penelope Pitstop, Three 
Musketeers, The New Adventures of 
Huck Finn, Dastardly and Muttley in 
Their Flying Machines, Where’s 
Huddies? and Motormouse and Au- 
tocat. He designed the environs for The 
Lone Ranger (1966) and Emergency + 
4. 

Peregoy ’s original designs hâve also 
encompassed architectural environments, 
sculptures, theme park shows and rides, 
such as Kraft’s Land Pavilion and Kodak’s 
“Joumey Into Imagination” at Disney’s 
EPCOT Center in Florida. He is cur- 


rently designing backgrounds for Marvel 
Productions. 

We discussed his career in a sériés of 
three interviews this past January at Sul¬ 
livan Bluth Studios; the following is a 
condensation of these interviews. 


How do y ou describe your job as a 
background stylist? 

A background stylist is someone who 
is designing the ambiance, the environ¬ 
ment, and the world in which moving 
drawn characters live. It’s very impor¬ 
tant what that world is. 

A background créâtes a world for 
animated characters. It’s the ambiance. 
It’s not an attempt to make (though it is, 
now) a live-action representational back¬ 
ground that literally looks like abackdrop 
behind vaudeville animated characters. 
The characters are not in that particular 
world. 

That’s why a stylist is a stylist. You 
create a world that is compatible with the 
characters. It isn’t that the world is be- 
lievable because it is rendered realisti- 
cally, it is believable because of the integ- 


rity, the sensitivity and the awareness of 
the designer. 

But that doesn’t exist any more, be¬ 
cause producers hâve no empathy for it, 
and are not interested. 

Originally the différence was Eyvind 
Earle, Ty Wong, Art Reilly and Mary 
Blair and myself. We’re stylists. We’re 
different artists who hâve different con¬ 
cepts. The concepts are different because 
the stories are different. Mary Blair 
wouldn’t design a Peter Pan like The 
Three Caballeros. It’s not simply be¬ 
cause it’s set in Latin America. It was a 
style. It was pastel, whimsical, charm- 
ing; it was beautifully designed. It was 
believable. 

People believed that Bambi lived in 
the forest. It wasn’t a realistic forest; it 
was a watercolorforest background. But 
it fit. That’s why it was a good style. 

Dumbo was different. Dumbowas 
a hodgepodge of many styles, but it still 
worked, because primarily there was no 
fear, and there was no regimentation. 

Today, I hâve the feeling they’re 
trying to say, 4 Boy, isn’t that a great 


14 Animato! 
















































































background?’ So what? A background 
isn’t anything if it doesn’t hâve charac- 
ters on it. And it’s doing nothing. A 
background is not something you hang 
on a wall. People do now, but that isn’t 
the intent. And that*s not what they’re 
for. They’re not illustrations. It’s motion 
picture imagery, a world that is filmed. 
What happens to the artwork is quite 
spécial, if you understand it. You don’t 
teach someone to paint this way for film, 
or use this kind of color. But that’s what 
they do today. 

It’s important that the stylist be well- 
immersed in the animation film business. 
And if he has been in the business, he 
should hâve empathy for film. Andpaint- 
ing backgrounds is a very very spécial 
and unique approach. It’s not illustration. 
It’s not painting pictures. It’s creating 
ambiance and a world for the animated 
moving characters to live in, to work in. 
And the more integrity that the back¬ 
grounds hâve, the more integrity the film 
has. And it’s obvious, the more integrity 
the background stylist has, the more in¬ 
tegrity the film will hâve. 

So the background person is a per- 
son working under the influence of the 
personality and style of the background 
stylist. He is as essential as the the 
animator. 

Where and when did you train to 
become an artist? 

Well, I started when I was 17, before 
I finished my éducation. I got a job at 
Disney Studios with my portfolio, with 
the éducation that I had in the Saturday 
classes (at the Chouinard Art Institute). 
And this I’m very proud of. I worked for 
them for six months, in 1943. I quit 
because I thought it was a factory, and 
went to work as a cowboy. My first 
professional job was Disney, my second 
commission was when I was working as 
a cowboy, commissioned to do a portrait 
of the Pauli mare, which was a thor- 
oughbred cutting horse who won the 
world champion cutting horse prize at the 
1939 World’s Fair. 

I went back to Chouinard’s for one 
semester. And because I didn’t want to 
be a commercial artist, I studied with Don 
Graham there, who has always been a 
tremendous influence, a very fine teacher, 
very close to the animation business. 

But then I left and went to Mexico, 
San Miguel Allende, to study, and it was 


under the influence of Sigueros, Diego 
Rivera, and Orozco, which I admire, and 
still do, very much. 

I left after a year, came back to the 
States, worked for ten months in San 
Francisco and then the Redwood coun- 
try, in service stations to getenoughmoney 
to go to Paris, and went to Paris to study 
with Fernand Leger. Léger was a very 
significant artist. Fernand Leger was 
influenced by an obol (that’s a Shell from 
the First World War) which influenced 
his work for the rest of his life, as to the 
political, the social, and the économie 
content of his art. 

That was the beginning of my art 
training. 

But, I will say this: the real training 
is in the application. Drawing. Drawing, 
drawing, drawing ! That is the real teacher. 

Drawing in itself — the application, 
the motivation, and the intent — I find, 
even at this late date, are more than sig- 
nificant in training! Not just going to 
school and specializing. The wanting to 
be an artist is of great significance. And 
as I say, the conceptual part of why you 
want to be an artist, is how you become an 
artist, then how you apply yourself; not 
the school ing. 

So now, back I go to work to make a 
living at Disney’s, and this is some ten 
years later, at Disney’s in 1951, on Peter 
Pan. 

I started at the bottom again, as an 
inbetweener, with as much or more édu¬ 
cation than most, but no degrees. In other 
words, I quit high school to go to work for 
Disney in the lOth grade. So the éduca¬ 
tion was very fortunate, again in hind- 
sight. I’m very appréciative of apprentic- 
ing in the animation business with such 
artists as Marc Davis, Ken Anderson, and 
there was Ward Kimball, Bill Peet, Bill 
Tytla, Mary Blair. Others who were 
influential were Charlie Phillippi, Hugh 
Hennessy, Ricola Brun, Ty Wong, ail 
very, very fine artists who had worked in 
the business and their work was very 
available, which was an éducation itself. 

While you were at Disney, did the 
staff hâve any influence outside of the 
studio? Inother words, wereyoulooking 
at other studio cartoons? Was there any 
influence of those ? 

The influence, for me, wasn’t Chuck 
Jones or FrizFreleng in the Warner Broth¬ 
ers cartoons. Nor was it Tom & Jerry or 


Lantz; none of those. The influence other 
than Disney ’s was the original UPA group, 
which at that time was impressive, and 
was the other side of the coin. They were 
extremely contemporary, avant garde. 
You could say they were really greatly 
influenced by the tum of the century, in 
international art design. That’s one stu¬ 
dio I never worked for. But I was influ¬ 
enced by them, not so much the others. 

I worked at Disney for four years and 
became a cleanup artist in animation and 
then went upstairs (because the back¬ 
ground department was on the second 
floor) to layout and background, and be¬ 
came a background painter, with Eyvind 
EarleonSleepingBeauty. I was the first 
background artist to work right with 
Eyvind in the beginning of the film, and 
finished as a background painter, work¬ 
ing through Sleeping Beauty. 

Eyvind Earle was the stylist. He set 
the styles, and the background artists 
followed avidly, completely, his direc¬ 
tion and his style. A background painter 
has to adapt himself and his talent and his 
ability, to whatever degree, to totally 
mimicking the style of the background 
stylist. The background stylist on Sleep¬ 
ing Beauty was Eyvind Earle. The world 
in which this film took place was Eyvind 
Earle’s world. 

And then I had the opportunity to be 
the background stylist on 101 Dalma- 
tians, which was a very exceptional op¬ 
portunity, and was a film that the Disney 
people were deliberately asserting them- 
selves to do. 

They wanted to do something con¬ 
temporary. So they got a contemporary 
story, and Walt bought it. Visually it was 
a breakthrough. Not as extreme as UPA. 
It wouldn’t attempt to be, but it was a very 
fme film. And I was privileged to be the 
background stylist on it. 

Chosen by? 

By Ken Anderson. And that was a 
great opportunity. And these opportuni¬ 
tés are rare. 

On 101 Dalmatians, my contribution 
was that world. There were other back¬ 
ground painters who worked with me. 
101 Dalmatians was better than Sleep¬ 
ing Beauty, in this sense, because I had 
been a background painter, and there was 
neither the effort on the direction or on 
my part to make background artists slav- 
ishly follow my style. There are se- 


Animato! 15 



quences in it thaï drift a little, but that* s ail 
right, because the impetus, the direction, 
the style of the film was set by me, and 
strongly enough by my design that the 
film itself stayed within the direction, but 
it’s not boring! Sleeping Beauty is bor- 
ing. Every scene is identical, every scene 
has detail, detail, detail, detail. It’s ail 
right, it’s a good film, but — there is a 
différence. 

101 Dalmadons was the first fea- 
ture to use xerography. How did this 
process affect how you worked? 

I had superb layout designers. We 
had fabulous artists like Emi Nordli, Ray 
Arogon, Dale Bamheart — I possibly 
missed a few, but these were young art¬ 
ists of my génération, and they were 
damn good. They contributed tremen- 
dously to the way backgrounds were. It 
affected the way I painted because I 
painted deliberately with the awareness 
that it was not necessary to go in and 
render the hell out of a doorknob, or a 
piece of glass, or a tree. 

You can look at Pinnochio and it’s a 
very fme film, but it’s dated. Very dated. 
101 Dalmatians will never be dated. It’s 
much like Broygel [sp?] of the 1500s. 
His paintings were contemporary as any- 
thing done today. It’s not because of any 
other thing than he was a superb désigna*. 
It’s only a two-dimensional surface. 

In 101 Dalmatians, the background 
painter did not highly render the back¬ 
ground. I managed to keep Woolie [Rei- 
therman] at bay on Sword and the Stone, 
but his attempt was to get the xerox lines 
against the backgrounds; it became a 
Ronald Searle affectation. There’s no 
point in that. It’s just superficial that the 
films look that way. Aristocats looks 
like a classically-painted Disney film with 
xerox lines on it. And of course it looks 
that way. Jungle Book is an absurdity in 
the other sense that it looks like Aris¬ 
tocats without the xerox line and it loses 
the “crutch.” So what you hâve is neither 
fish nor fowl that way. 

The stylist is the personality. The 
stylist’s personality has as much to corne 
into play in how he works with people, 
how he has a great deal to do with it. 

Did Disney hâve a say so in the 
style? 

Oh, no! No, this isone film that Walt 
didn’t hâve any say-so in the style, and 
disliked it immensely after it was done. 


To my being let go after Sword in the 
Stone in 1965, after 14 years. You asked 
if he [had any influence]; no, he didn’t. 
My wife’s comment was, ‘This isn’t go- 
ing to do you any good.’ I said, ‘Why?’ 
She said, ‘Because the paintings in the 
backgrounds look too much like you than 
it does Disney.’ I take that as a compli¬ 
ment. 

When I went on to style The Sword 
in the Stone, Walt did hâve something to 
say about the changing of style in the 
sense that he had Woolie Reitherman 
was becoming more authoritarian, and 
had more to say about what the style 
would be. There ceased to be a stylist 
after Sword in the Stone. I styled Sword 
in the Stone but as the film progressed, it 
started to drift backwards, back to what is 
now known as the classic Disney back¬ 
ground style. I feel good about it, but it 
wasn’t the film, background- wise, that 
101 Dalmatians was. Nor was it the film, 
background- wise, that Windwagon Smith 
was. Or films that I did afterwards when 
I left Disney, where I had complété abil- 
ity to style the film. 

In 1965, after I was fired from 
Disney, my first real key design job for 
background was with Ed Graham for The 
Shooting of Dan McGroo , which got an 
Academy nomination. It was a featurette. 
There was a very fme director. George 
Singer, and very fine layout men. Bob 
Dranko and George Cannata. Dranko 
and Cannata designed some fabulous 
characters and layouts. I was asked to 
style it so I took the layouts and the 
characters — and this is unusual because 
today animators would be incensed to 
allow a background painter to style the 
inking of their characters. 

Seeing that it was a Robert Service 
poem that we called he Shooting ofDan 
McGroo in the Klondike time, I thought it 
was a perfect story and setting to take the 
layouts and ink them with a quill. With a 
sketchy line. Just not very accurately, not 
precisely, but sketched with a quill, with 
— I think — black ink, and then painted 
differently from Dalmatians, with more 
arbitrary color behind them. Dalmatians 
had a very Candensky-like (if you will) 
différence between it and The Shooting of 
Dan McGroo. I started on Sword in the 
Stone as painting with arbitrary color 
behind a xerox drawing; with The Shoot¬ 
ing ofDan McGroo it was very fluid to 


paint behind it. 

I inked the characters myself with 
this sketchy line. This was at a time when 
I knew Charley Phillipi *s wife, Jane Phil- 
lipi, a Disney inker. She was working for 
Bill Hanna’s sister, Connie. I went over 
and asked them if they would like to do 
this project, they would like to take and 
ink the characters as I had inked them, 
because I was going to ink the back¬ 
grounds. They were delighted. Jane was 
delighted; Mary Ann was delighted, sev- 
eral others were involved. 

This you couldn’t do today. Or if 
you did, you’d be suspect, and I don’t 
know if there’s that kind of talent around 
inking. This wasn’t the Pinocchio or 
Snow White ink; this was an individual 
talent that each inking girl would use. 

I went to work for Herb Klynn, who 
was the production manager at Format 
who produced The Lone Ranger, and he 
had been the production manager ofUPA. 
It was [for] Saturday moming, but Herb 
Klynn was a very quality-oriented man. 

Is there a différence hetweenfeature 
and télévision backgrounds? Are the 
demands the same? 

Depending on what era you were in. 
In 19651 started with Herb Klynn, and in 
1966 that year we did Lone Ranger. As 
far as I’m concemed, as the background 
artist involved in the styling of the film, I 
could hâve taken any one of those pic- 
tures and it could hâve been released by 
Disney — I’m talking about the back¬ 
grounds — and it was absolutely the 
quality of any film put out by Disney. 

On The Lone Ranger , I was hired at 
the conception of the production pre¬ 
cisely because I had the expérience from 
Disney’s at that time, and because the 
man who actually had been working with 
me had no expérience in putting this 
under the caméra and putting it on the 
screen. 

The Lone Ranger was an innovative 
sériés to do. It’s innovative today: tom 
color paper with black Chinese marking 
pencil on cel. Powerful for Saturday 
moming, but you couldn’t say the back¬ 
grounds were Saturday moming crap be¬ 
cause they weren’t. A full-length feature 
could be made this way and be extremely 
successful. 

After Lone Ranger I was asked to 
corne to Hanna-Barbera to head up their 
background department, and I believe 


16 Animato! 



that was 1967. Being head of the back- 
ground department also entailed being 
thebackgroundstylist. Priortomy being 
there, the backgrounds were Flintstones 
and they were ail representational a la 
Tom and Jerry. 

Whenlcame on staff they had at the 
background department, at the time, The 
New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. 
Live actionanimation. 

. . .Which was a new challenge for 
y ou, because you're integrating live ac¬ 
tion with the backgrounds. 

As I remember, I 
had no big problem 
with it. Even though I 
did the keys on it and 
paintedduring the pro¬ 
duction, I had no prob¬ 
lem because the ani- 
mated part was ani¬ 
mation and live action 
was live action. The 
mistake would try to 
be to integrate the ani- 
mated background, 
and make the illustra¬ 
tion an attempt at pho¬ 
tographie realism. 

Then you’d hâve 
trouble. Because then 
you’re trying to fool, 
and this doesn’t work. 

I was the stylist, 
and head of the back¬ 
ground department, 
supervising back¬ 
grounds and styling. 

Although it was for 
Saturday moming, 

Saturday moming did 
not hâve a bad name 
at that time. It was 
animation production. 

I would style each sériés according to the 
story and the characters, and each one 
had a style. Some were Three Muske- 
teers with the China marker, the grease 
pencil with painted background, grease 
pencil-on-cel (but not with tom paper and 
paint, as it was on The Lone Ranger). It 
was a strong adventure sériés. The back¬ 
grounds on this sériés had that ambiance, 
and this strength. 

Motormouse was more lyrical, as 
wa s Penelope Pitstop. Color inked Unes 
on cel rather than grease pencil, against 
painted backgrounds, which made a big 


différence. Totally different style. 

Y ou mentioned before the impor¬ 
tance of the concept stage of a film or TV 
show. Could you tell me about your 
involvement as a stylist and how you 
worked with Hanna-Barbera and the net- 
work? 

There’s the idéal situation and there’ s 
the reality of the styling situation. Of 
course, in comparison to doing prepro- 
duction at Disney and a Hanna-Barbera 
Saturday moming sériés — the time for 
preproduction background styling was 


limited. The time spent is relatively short. 
But I’d say over a period of a month, 
maybe, at most. And I was given the 
layouts, and the layouts generally would 
follow a pattern. They didn’t change too 
much. On something like Three Musket- 
eers , which was a period piece, there 
were layout people who took référencé, 
and for ail intents and purposes, [the 
style] was representational. 

Then there would be Motormouse , 
which would be total fantasy. So there 
was a possibility to go whimsical, and 
lyrical, and the layouts would hâve some 


of that, but then when it came to the 
styling, we had the prérogative to put it in 
the ambiance and the character of the 
story. Of course we would know what the 
story was, who the lead characters were, 
what their personalities were, what the 
story was in the script. And of course 
we’d read the script, which would give an 
indication. 

The background department had the 
approval of Joe and Bill and Iwao 
Takamoto, who was créative head. When 
I first was there, I had a lot of ffeedom to 
do styling as I saw 
fit. But there was a 
time it had to be 
delivered by the 
next season, and 
there would be 
something like sev- 
enteen half-hour 
shows. 

The styling, at 
first, didn’t ail hâve 
to look like Scooby 
Doo. And it didn’t 
hâve to look like 
The Flintstones . 
Now it’s changed 
since then. They 
hâve a Flintstones 
style and a Scooby 
Doo style and The 
Jetsons style. Iam 
not surprised when 
young people say to 
methereisastrange 
conformity in ail of 
the backgrounds. 
From studio to stu¬ 
dio, they don’t 
change. I would 
say, in recent times, 
styling doesn’t re- 
ally exist. It’s just a matter of somebody 
doing key backgrounds, which are not 
styling, really. They’re ail similar and ail 
representational, and thatpretty well cov¬ 
ers it. And also they’re illustrations, 
rather than backgrounds painted for film. 
That’s because in the business there are 
lots of artists who corne from an illustra¬ 
tion background and they don’t hâve the 
expérience of the studios in demand. Ob- 
viously an illustrator can fulfill, so that 
makes it possible for inexpérience. A 
person to be called a background stylist, 
and it seems as though the demand is for 



Animato! 17 









the sameness. 

[At Hanna-Barbera] we produced a 
lot of work. The work was quality work. 
The backgrounds were as good as any 
backgrounds for any feature. We didn’t 
go in to great embellishment — but they 
were for a sériés for Saturday moming. 
But they weren’t cheap backgrounds. 
They weren’t — in any way — limited, 
especially in their concept. There was a 
time when background painters didn’t 
get bored, because each sériés was differ¬ 
ent. 

I hired Dave Wiedman to do Das- 
tardly & Muttley. A very fine designer. 
He had worked for the original UPA 
group. I said, 4 Dave, this is your baby, 
youdoit.’ And he didn’t believeit. Isaid, 
‘Yeah, youcando it. Goahead.’ Andhe 
did. And it was very different, very 
handsome, a quality background, artwise, 
film. 

Gradually, over aperiodof some six 
years, Hanna-Barbera fell back in, be¬ 
cause of their production scheduling, and 
because of the advent of animation being 
sent to [overseas] production houses. 
Originally Spain, and then Australia, then 
Taiwan, Japan,Korea,Poland. Now Rus- 
sia. Now mainland China. 

But why did Hanna-Barbera want it 
to be different at one point and then go 
back to being interchangeable? Was it 
économies? 

No. Bill Hanna had set up these 
production houses ail over the world, and 
so they frnally got themselves a man who 
limited himself to the device in formula 
painting and sent keys that were abso- 
lutely very easy to reproduce. So then, 
when you got a production house that 
once they did one film, two films, the 
more they could keep on painting, with 
no great problem, with great ease. So 
they changed, not deliberately, but the 
whole industry went this way. 

Today, the reason why ail back¬ 
grounds are interchangeable is because, 
first, there are no background stylists; 
they’re just background painters. And 
even people who call themselves key 
background [painters], I’ve run into any 
number of them who hâve never painted 
backgrounds for a feature, much less any- 
thing else, and they’re doing what they 
call keys, and ail they are are illustrations, 
and most of them hâve a great facility for 
copying. 


A designer is not somebody who 
excelsinmimicry. There’sagreatdealof 
différence. 

Before you do a drawing, your atti¬ 
tude toward the drawing is absolutely 
essential. It’s very difficult for a young 
person to perceive this because they’re 
just attempting to mimic and please some¬ 
body else. Fine. This is a leaming proc- 
ess. But, in the animation business, be¬ 
cause it is a visual arts medium, every- 
body’s personality cornes through. 

In other words, we live in windo wless 
houses, and [work for] almost faceless 
people, and I would venture to say that 
producers lose sight of the fact that they 
can control ail of the artists, that they can 
get the film they want. Oh, they do. But 
they also get the kind of film that is 
produced in that manner. Ail that matters 
is how the film is produced, are reflected 
in the finished product. There’s no such 
thing as making a film that is detached 
and removed from the personalities of 
everybody who’s working on it. 

I know now there are individuals 
doing background keys who hâve never 
even painted backgrounds. Thissceneis 
visible in the finished product. 

In the late 1970s I was at WED. I 
was hired by — interestingly enough — 
the son of [Stephen] Bosustow, who was 
the head of UPA. His son Nicolas hired 
me specifically to do a film called To Try 
Try Again and Succeed , and I was asked 
to do it because he wanted something 
different, something original, something 
Creative— then proceeded to tell me how 
to do it. Which is normal. I proceeded to 
tell them, 4 Well, then, you get somebody 
else.’ [They said,] 4 No, we want you to 
do it.’ 4 Okay,’ I said, 4 then I do it.’ 

So that film I’m very proud of. Igot 
design crédits on that one, and they didn’t 
call me the background stylist because I 
designed the characters; I posed the char- 
acters in each scene; I laid it out; I painted 
it; and so I designed it. The film was very 
good because it was a Sam Weiss-di- 
rected film; he was very good. [Bill] 
Littlejohn had never worked for Walt, but 
was a hell of an animator. He didn’t 
change my characters. 

Again, the story: And this had no 
xerox lines. No grease pencil. An en- 
tirely different style. Different than The 
Shooting of Dan McGroo. And it is, in 
my estimation, very fine. These eagles 


really flew. The little eagle, when he’s 
pushed off the cliff, he really falls. Again, 
it’s the integrity of the people, the direc- 
tor, and the animator, the men who wrote 
the story, and the voice was Orson Welles. 
You put this ail together, you get a fine 
film. 

If background styles are inter¬ 
changeable today, with little or no différ¬ 
ence, do you see any change? 

No. No. Idon’t see any change. But 
that’snotunusual. Because I don’tthink 
there’s an individual who necessarily has 
the capacity, the expérience, and the sen- 
sitivity. I think it takes a very spécial 
person to style an animated film. But that 
person isn’t a person who could get finan- 
cial backing. That kind of person doesn’t 
influence bankers, or producers, or large 
studios. They think of the artist as a 
hybrid individual. And they’re right. 

But if we didn’t hâve those individu¬ 
als 30 years ago we wouldn’t hâve had 
the film we had then. And Ican’t imagine 
what they would look like now. They 
probably would hâve looked just like 
they do now, which is over a longer 
period of time, because they’re abso¬ 
lutely interchangeable. Absolutely stere- 
otyped. And this is not going to change, 
unless there—out there that I don’t know 
of — is an entrepreneur who has the 
desire to do so. And thatproducer cannot 
be the one who does it. He cannot call 
himself a producer that he or she just 
décidés they will make the decisions, 
because they don’tknow. That’snotvery 
likely, a person with money.... 

So I don’t know yet, but I do know 
that it can be done. Don Quixote could be 
afantasticfilm. There are people to make 
it, but they truly would need directors 
now. They need direction. They need 
motivation. They need security. . . .to 
produce something of great significance, 
beauty, pathos, joy, ail of that. I don’t 
know. I just don’tknow. 

I speak with great frustration, and 
with a lot of anxiety, and a lot of disap- 
pointment. AndI’m65;that’snotold,but 
it also isn’t young. It leaves very little 
time for miracles, or for that wonderful 
shot at directing that ail of a sudden 
cornes out of nowhere and ail of a sudden 
you’ve been given the opportunity to do 
a fantastic piece of werk. 

It’s happened to me on rare occa¬ 
sions, but that has passed, and it wasn’t in 


18 Animato! 



animation. It was in a theme park. Even 
in a theme park, that was fantastic work 
that I did for EPCOT. It won’t ever be 
done in another theme park. The work 
that I did was ail mine. It’s very obvious 
that it’s an individual’s work, but there’s 
no names. 

They don't hâve a crédits list. 

That’sright. So that means it’s im¬ 
possible for the artist to survive. Which 
is a worse-than-primitive commentary 
on contemporary art, because art appears 
where it appears. The fact that some of 
the best art that I’ve done in my life is at 
EPCOT, an amusement park, doesn’t 
mean that it isn’t damn good. But it’s 
hidden, you see. 

You mean no crédit. 

No crédit. I’ve talked to young 
people, and they mention the various 
sériés that they enjoy, but you would 
never hâve known that; I would never 
hâve known that, while I was working 
there. Nobody ever showed any appré¬ 
ciation for what I did. 

Are you talking about the people in 
the studio or the fans? 

The people in the studio. This is a 
curious part of this business. I did The 
Shooting ofDanMcGroo , whichreceived 
Academy nomination. Some 20 years 
later, I was in Germany [working for MS 
Films], An animator who had recom- 
mended me to Ed Graham came up to me 
and said, ‘You know, Walt, I hâve a letter 
that Ed Graham wrote me, thanking me 
forintroducingyoutohim.’ My reaction 
was, ‘Why didn’t he write me?’ Why 
didn’t he thank me? He got an Academy 
nomination; I didn’t. I styled the picture. 
It’sstill unique. I’ve done so many films 
that they ’re still innovative 30 years later. 

The last film that I designed was To 
Try Try Again and to Succeed. The 
producer never once really thanked me. I 
designed a poster for him and failed to 
sign it, and I had to ask him for a couple 
of them. He didn’t put my name on the 
brochures that were showing at the mu¬ 
séum, where a friend of mine saw it and 
said, ‘Oh, Walt, I saw your film. I really 
likedit. It’sverynice. Would you like the 
program? Well, your name isn’t on it.’ I 
talked to Niçk Bosustow and I said, ‘Why 
the hell didn’t you put my name on it? 
You got Littlejohn’s name [on it], the 
animator, he deserves it, and Sam Weiss, 
Orson Welles. But the guy who designed 


the film, his name wasn’t on it.* 

So, how can it propagate? How can 
a film company, through animated film, 
propagate themselves, if nobody’s curi¬ 
ous enough to go back and fmd out who 
did it? And what’s behind them? 

Why did 101 Dalmatians look like 
101 Dalmatians? Why did it look that 
way? It wasn ’ t as simple as names. Itwas 
because of a lot of people, yes. Very fine 
artists. Notjustme. But the people that 
know them ignore the crédits. If some- 
body wants to produce a film why don’t 
they look up those names? Some of them 
fmd out they committed suicide, you 



know. Great talents. But they don’t care. 

It’s not that they don’t care; they’re 
so stereotyped even in their own con¬ 
cepts. They’re ail saying, ‘Aw, they’re 
not making Fantasias anymore.’ Who 
the hell wants to? I can make Don Quix- 
ote not better, but something so different 
from Fantasia but so wonderful it would 
blow your mind. But they don’t want to 
see it. 


My whole intent is to try to influence 
the industry with innovative, expressive 
films with the State of the styling of the 
backgrounds, but it’s applicable to every- 
thing. The backgrounds, as we’ve said 
before, are the world in which the stories 
take place. 

And the fact that they’re so mundane 
and ordinary obviously means that the 
characters—no matter how they’re styled 
or how they’re designed, fantasy charac¬ 
ters or live characters — they exist in a 
very ordinary world. 

Would you blâme this on the net- 
work or on the studio? When you design 
a world for a cartoon, doesn’t the net- 
work hâve approval first? 

Which came first, the chicken or the 
egg? Originally, networks took The 
Flintstones [from the advertising agen- 
cies], and were very successful, and Sat- 
urday moming became bigger and bigger 
and bigger, and yes, networks became 
more powerful. But that was only be¬ 
cause Hanna-Barbera and gradually other 
studios relinquished their right, because 
of the Nielsen ratings. 

It’s the sort of thing that you’re 
damned if you do and damned if you 
don’t. It isn’t that you can put the blâme 
on the networks; you can also blâme the 
lack of backbone in the animation busi¬ 
ness. 

Jay Ward did Bullwinkle . Nobody 
told him how to do Bullwinkle. Nobody 
told Herb Klynn at Format Studios how to 
do The Lone Ranger. Butintheadventof 
production houses and network profit- 
taking gave the prérogative to the net¬ 
works. 

It’snotunlikechildren. One blâmes 
the other. The networks would say, well 
you don’t hâve the talent. The producers 
say, well, the networks make us do it. The 
background stylist who isn’t capable can 
say, well, the producer won’t let me. 
Everybody blâmes everybody else. 

But it’s my opinion that the right to 
Creative integrity has been relinquished. 

I’m convinced this industry will sur¬ 
vive, but it won’t do anything of any real 
value. 

Unless? 

Unless they quit looking at it as a 
product. Why do people say ‘Saturday 
moming quality’? Why should Saturday 
moming quality be bad? Can anybody 
answer that? Why should it be bad? 


Animato! 19 




Censoring the Reporters? 

Are you really fînding out ail the animation news? 


by Karl Cohen 

With the recent sucess of animation 
at the box offices across the US and with 
The Simpsons holding their own against 
Cosby, things are looking good for the 
animation industry - or so it seems. If 
things are so good, then why has this 
reporter noted so many problems with 
censorship in recent months? 

There are many forms censorship 
may take in the animation industry. One 
form is the suppression of information by 
the industry. Another form is created by 
publications not wanting to offend adver- 
tisers or lose subscribers. A realistic 
form is self-imposed to avoid the embar¬ 
ras sment of certain people. There is also 
the problem of being gi ven false informa¬ 
tion and until recently there was official 
censorship of films because of their po- 
litical message in Eastem Block coun- 
tries. Even Canada censored a cartoon 
recently. 

It may or may not corne as a surprise 
that the largest producer of animation in 
the US is also constantly suppressing 
“toon” news. Disney seems to want the 
world to believe that they personally cre- 
ateeverything that is Disney. Oftenwork 
is created for them by outside developers 
or producers and most if not ail of their 
contracts with others stipulate that the 
outside companies cannot release news 
of what they are doing for Disney. Em¬ 
ployées must treat the work as top secret. 

Two examples of this are recent proj- 
ects for Disney by Industrial Light and 
Magic and Pixar. ILM’s computer divi¬ 
sion spent two years developing some of 
the visuals for the “Body Wars” attrac¬ 
tion at Disney World is Florida. Disney 
doesn’t give crédit at the ride so visitors 
probably assume Disney developed ail of 
it. Nobody has written about ail the work 
that went into the exceptional attraction. 

Pixar recently developed the Com¬ 
puter Assisted Paint System (CAPS) for 
Disney. CAPS worked overtime to ink 
and paint the entire Rescuers Down Un- 
derfeature. The artists gave the machine 
their pencil drawings and CAPS did the 
rest. It does the ink and paint, composites 


art with backgrounds, does amazing multi- 
plane work, and more. The final compos¬ 
ite digital image was scanned onto 35mm 
film. The finished results look like they 
were made by hand. The image quality is 
excellent. 

Pixar’s staff worked with Disney on 
CAPS for five years, but they couldn’t let 
the press and friends know they had de¬ 
veloped a System that may revolutionize 
theatrical and TV animation. Disney 
barely gave the company crédit in the 
film. They mentioned the company name 
and the names of four people in the créd¬ 
its without explaining as to why they 
were there. 

The first official mention of the Sys¬ 
tem came on July 25, 1991, when Ed 
Catmul, Pixar’s president, announced that 
his company was producing a computer 
generated feature for Disney. He an¬ 
nounced that John Lasseter will write and 
direct it and that Buena Vista will distrib- 
ute it. He also said that the company’s 
software has replaced the laborious proc- 
ess of hand coloring Disney’s two-di- 
mensional animation and that the first 
applicationhadbeenTheRescuersDown 
Under. Readers of Animato will note 
that in Jim Fanning’s issue 21 interview 
with Mike Gabriel, director of Rescuers 
Down Under, Gabriel talks about the 
technical advances in the film without 
explaining that CAPS was responsible 
for them. 

CAPS type Systems will probably 
change the way animation is done 
throughout the industry in the coming 
decade. Other companies are now intro- 
ducing their own computer ink and paint 
Systems. They may eliminate most 
projects being done overseas. The com¬ 
puter can do complex animation 
compositing quickly so expect more 
Roger Rabbit type projects as well as 
works that combine 2D with 3D anima¬ 
tion. Also expect the addition of new 
lighting techniques, ray tracing, and other 
details. 

These two examples of censorship 
are probably the tip of the iceberg when it 
cornes to Disney. Other cases exist. Pa¬ 


cific Data Images was mentioned in an 
article by Jim Henson as working on his 
Muppet attraction in Florida. They pro- 
duced 70mm images of their computer 
generated character Waldo for the Mup¬ 
pet studio attraction. Although Henson 
had been interviewed on the project, the 
staff at PDI can only say they did “some- 
thing” for the theme park. 

Other companies besides Disney try 
to manage news. Two exceptional half 
hour TV shows are now sitting on net- 
work shelves that you will probably never 
see or hear about. Colossal Pictures did 
an exceptional Betty Boop spécial that 
captures the spirit of the early surreal 
Betty Boops. The work belongs to King 
Features and CBS, and until it airs it is 
difficult to write about this great project. 
CBS has announced several times that it 
will air the show (early 1990, Fall 1990, 
etc.) but CBS refuses to allow any feature 
articles on the show until an exact air date 
is set. I know of another project that also 
sits on a shelf and the people who worked 
on it are asked not to talk to the press 
about it. 

As a reporter, I’ve been asked by 
companies not to report on items for 
reasonable but slightly silly reasons. A 
State lottery asked that there be no public- 
ity about a computer generated animated 
commercial because they didn’t want vot- 
ers to know how much money was being 
spent topromotegambling. What différ¬ 
ence does it make if the lottery commis¬ 
sion spent $25,000 or $250,000 on an ad 
when air buys, billboards, and print cam¬ 
pai gns cost millions each month? 

An ail to common problem occurred 
in the case of a national spot that was 
fantastic but was made just before the 
sposnor or agency had a change of com- 
mand. The new team didn’t want to be 
associated with the création of the old 
bosses. The ad was aired but the com¬ 
pany that produced it couldn’t let Ad Age 
or any other trades know who did it due to 
their client’s wishes that there be no pub- 
licity. Toobad. It was an amazing piece 
of stop motion animation and it could 
hâve gone on to win an award or two. the 


20 Animato! 



crazy thing about the ad is that the group 
that suppressed the news of the first ad 
recently had the same company produce 
a sequel that is being promoted in the 
tradepapers as an exciting new work by... 

Self censorship is sometimes neces- 
sary. Papers often carry items about 
people being appointed to jobs within the 
industry but except when it cornes to 
information about radio or TV news 
people, you rarely hear about anyone 
who has departed the company. Some 
jobs are new, but many hiring mean some- 
body else has been fired, promoted, left 
for a better job or is gone for other rea- 
sons. Only part of the story is normally 
covered. 

A recent scandai in the L.A. anima¬ 
tion world is another story that wasn’t 
covered although a lot of people knew 
aboutit. Nobodywantedtofurtherhurt 
or embarrass the people who were ripped 
off. Somebody went tojail and insurance 
covered some of the loss. 

Censorship of films exists in some 
countries for political reasons. At the 
Ottawa Animation festival last year 
people were talking about a TV spot John 
Weldon did for the Canadian Internai 
Revenue Service. It aired once or twice 
and then someone found reason to object 
to it. Ail prints were destroyed. Nobody 
seemed to know why. 

At the same festival there were two 
programs of shorts that had been banned 
ffom exhibition in eastem Block nations 
before the recent change in political 
events. Until now only the Jan 
Svankmajer shorts in the program hâve 
been exhibited in the US. 

As a member of the working cartoon 
press, Fm constantly sent press releases 
aboutnewfilmsandotheractivities. This 
is news sent out to make companies look 
good and not ail of it is true. It pays to 
check information. 

Someone recently confessed that a 
business item about the gross income of 
a production house was greatly exagger- 
ated in an article that appeared a few 
years ago. It was inflated by several 
million dollars to make the company look 
great. 

Recently I called a prominent voice 
actress to ask about a production her 
name was associated with. The reply was 
that a demo was made but the project fell 
through. The news release that stated that 


the show was in production was false and 
the actress was mad that the producer had 
sent out the item. 

Last summer a cable network that 
should hâve known better released a new 
story about a project they were doing. A 
tentative air date was announced. The 
show was being produced by an outside 
production house and the company didn’t 
get a signed contract for the project until 
after the origibal air date had passed. The 
show aired 6 months later. 

There are many hard stories that 
animation press should cover. Nobody is 
writing about how the recent interest in 
animation has made millions for the people 
who own the rights to license products 
but hasn’t done much for the average 
worker in the industry except to provide 
more or less steady employment. 

Animators who work on your favor¬ 
ite TV shows and commercials are not 
getting rich. If and when the national 
interest in animation slows many will be 
laid off. New York, the birthplace of the 
animation industry, has had a depressed 
employment picture for animators for 
several years. 

A story Fd like to write but know 
most magazines wouldn’t touch is an 
expose on the dubious value of limited 
édition animation cels. The problem is 
that animation art dealers sell these cels 
and advertise in the magazines that would 
be interested in running these ads. 

To get my thoughts into prints, I 
contacted the Wall Street Journal and 
explained in a proposai that the limited 


édition art had no historié value. The fme 
print sometimes even says they are repro¬ 
ductions. I pointed out that some prints 
are mass produced using silkscreens, that 
Disney and Clampett items are not signed 
by their creators, that animation materi- 
als are not archivai and can deteriorate, 
and that buyers may fmd it hard or impos¬ 
sible to resell work for what they paid for 
it. The works may be beautiful but they 
are nothing more than overpriced souve¬ 
nirs produced for the high profits in- 
volved. 

The Journal later published a First 
rate story about buying and selling origi¬ 
nal animation production art. the article 
wamed that nitrate cels can décomposé. 
At the end of the long article they men- 
tioned that limited édition cels were 
“shunned by most collée tors.” They then 
quoted Jerry Beck as saying the works 
lack artistic value and therefore “will 
never be worth as much as a genuine 
production cel.” 

Beck also said a production cel “is a 
piece of a movie, but a limited édition cel 
is nothing but a piece of plastic with paint 
on it.” 

This may be the first time anything 
has been written about the cons as well as 
the pros of buying animation art. A 
gallery director who sells both limited 
éditions and originals surprised me by 
saying he had duplicated the article and 
sent it to his clients. On the other hand, 
the president of a company that makes 
limited édition art was reported to be 
quite upset with the article. 



\ W N U 



f\tV 





Animato! 21 






Art-Toons 


□ Dealers of Animated Art for Fun & Investment □ 


"Our goal is to give to the public the 
enjoyment of animation art at affordable 
prices. Art-Toons' commitment is to pro¬ 
vide our customers with an appréciable 
savings over major gallery prices. We 
will make every effort to obtain for you, the 
collector, the best value for your investment." 

Call or Write for Free Catalog 
(216) 468-2655 

P.O. Box 600 □ Northfield, Ohio 44067 


This ad might be lame ... 
But our catalog’s 
got GREAT COLORl 

Call for our FREE Illustrated Catalog! 

THF. ANIMATION 
CELECTION 

Tel. (416) 928 - CELS • Fax (416) 741 - 2873 








Intervie h> 

The Surreal World of 

Sally Cruikshank 

In which animator Steve Segal meets with our hero and discusses 
movie titles, the animation industry, and cat vomit. 



years. I've done about six different ones. 
They're ail nice little musical pièces. 

One's called "Islands of Emotions", 
and there's "in and Out Crowd" and, oh, 
"Beginning, Middle and End" and "Part 
of a Whole" and a sériés of numbers. But 
that’s a deceptively simple project. Song- 
writing.. LFm discovering songwriting is 
one of the things that’s a 
hidden talent of mine. 

Just writing songs, or do- 
ing animation? 

Well, in the past, other 
people hâve written the songs 
and then I’ve done the anima¬ 
tion, and I wasn’t that crazy 
about the tracks they sent me 
so the producer said I could 
start from the very beginning 
and write the songs and record 
and produce the music and do 
the whole thing, but so far I 
haven’t had a lot of luck on 
writing songs for Sesame 
Street. That’s one of things 
I’m doing, and I’m fooling 
around with another short, but 
unless I can get unexpected 
backing for it, I won’t be doing 
it. I was writing on that this 
moming. It’sanideal’vehad 
forawhile. It has Anita in this 
cartoon: “Mean Mail,” about a 
mall of pain. 

Like a shopping mall? 

Like a shopping mall, where every- 
thing is pain. 

Mall of pain almost seems like re- 
dundant. 

Yeah, I know, I know, that’s true. 
Dépends onhow you like shopping. Other 
than that, well, not that recently, I fin- 
ished movie titles for Madhouse. 


by Steve Segal 

Sally Cruikshank has been well 
known as an underground animator whose 
films such as Quasi at the Quackadero , 
Make Me Psychic and Face Like a Frog 
hâve endeared her to a large cuit follow- 
ing. Her surreal films also attracted the 
notice of Steven Spielburg whohiredher 
to do an animated sequence for 
the Twilight Zone movie. She 
has since done many animated 
title sequences for feature films 
and animation for Sesame 
Street. 

When I first drove to her 
San Fernando home she shares 
with her husband Jon Davison 
(Robocop, Airplane), I noticed 
the her car’s bumper sticker: 

"This Vehicle Protected by 
RoboCop." Inside were many 
colorful sculptures mae from 
styrofoam packing blocks. She 
patiently waited while I fumbled 
with a faulty microphone until 
we finally got started. 


What hâve you been doing 
lately? 

Nothing, really. I haven't 
done anything in a year. 

I saw a commercial you did 
- a Kool Aid commercial. 

No, I didn't. 

You didn't! Well, someone is copy- 
ing your style. 

Iknow! That goes on and they never 
call me... 

Themost recent thing I’ve been do¬ 
ing is trying to design some stuff for 
Levis commercials that I didn’t get. That 
would hâve been nice, but it didn’t 
happen.1 was hoping to be able to direct 


that Dr. Suess feature, but that didn't 
happen. 

A feature? 

They're doing aanimated feature at 
Tri-Star basedonhisbookO/i, The Places 
You'U Go. When I went in for the inter¬ 
view I saw ail his storyboard sketches for 
it which were really fantastic to see. 


It does seem that your style would fit 
very well with his. 

I’ve always liked his work a lot. He 
has been a big influence. At the time, it 
was also good because I get along with 
old people and I would hâve been work- 
ing with him, but now... 

Then I’m supposed to be writing 
songs for Sesame Street. I’ve done a 
number of pièces for them in the last two 


Animato! 23 






24 Animato! 


Is that the one withJohn Laroquette ? 

Yes, and Kirstie Alley. I really, 
really loved the way that tumed out. It 
was my favorite movie title. They got me 
a song that I liked. I didn’t animate to the 
music but I directed the animation to the 
music, which is the thing I most like 
doing. 

Directing or doing to music? 

Doing to music, working to a track, 
I really love that if I like the track. It’s my 
favorite thing. 

That’ s interesting, because I can only 
think ofFace Like a Frog. 

Only one part of that had where the 
track came first. In Make Me Psychic 
the track came first, actually, but... 

But thatseems more like background 
music. 

Yeah, it was, it was, except there’s 
one song in there. I really hâve strong 
feelings about that, about working to 
music, and I’ve wanted to do it, and I’ve 
tried, probably not hard enough, to get 
into music videos. 

Who wrote the song in Make Me 
Psychic? 

Al Dodge wrote that. He was one of 
the Cheap Suit Serenaders, Robert 
Crumb's backup band. 

How did you décidé to use Danny 
Elfman for the soundtrack for Face Like 
a Frog? 

He was in a band where they used to 
run Quasi at the Quackadero as a warm 
up act. I forget how I was introduced to 
him. 


I guess you did some music videos, 
didn’t you? 

Yeah, but you don’t want to get into 
that... 

Yeah, that’s also the common view. 

. .Plus the music that I really like isn’t 
what they’re paying money for for music 
videos. 

There you go. There are a lot of 
dishonest people in ail phases in the 
business, but it seems like the greatest 
degree in that field. 

I’ve heard that. That would really 
drive me up the wall. 

Tve been screwed so many timesJt 
seems that you’re well known enough 
that you could get some thing, maybe not, 
maybe l’m being naive. 


Naive. I’m agreeing...I 
don’t know, it’s a really tough 
field to get people to believe in, 
and especially to get anybody to 
take any risk in. I mean, with 
The Simpsons , they’re saying 
now, “they took such a risk.” 
But they didn’t take a risk, re¬ 
ally. I mean, here was an estab- 
lished comic strip, he’d already 
built up his audience as the 
comic strip. 

The established comic strip 
would be ”Life in Hell.” 

Yeah, but, you know, it’s a 
style, it’s a look, and it’s ail over 
the country. And then. . .The 
Tracey Ullman Show is more 
where they took a risk.. .But, 
you see, they’d already tested 
the water by the time that that 
came out. And Roger Rabbit, 
they said, oh, they took such a risk, well, 
that took eight years to get produced. 

It probably was a big risk. 

That was a big risk. That’s true, it 

was. 

In their defense, it probably was a 
risk. I mean, now you look bock and say, 
that’s cool, that’s fine, and everybody 
wants to watch it. But animation has not 
been that good and not been well re- 
ceived. It’s usually not done well. It’s 
one of thesefluky things where there’s no 
criteria for what makes the quality élé¬ 
ment. Matt Groening has some magical 
ingrédient that makes that work as far as 
T m concerned. So, that drivesproducers 
crazy because there’s no way to ... 

.. .To put their thumb on what it is 






that it’s got to get it again. 

When they started The Tracey Ull- 
man Show lhere were two animated seg¬ 
ments. 

Yes, MX. Brown... 

So, actually that’ s really smart, that’s 
a great way to test the waters, make little 
shorts. 

Oh yeah, I know. That* s what I was 
thinkingwiththis short. Ithoughtlwould 
try to sell it. For awhile it looked like 
Disney was going to be putting out shorts 
before ail their features. There was a lot 
of hoopla about that, but it appears that 
that doesn’tseemtobe happening. That’s 
what I was thinking if people were really 
unsure about my work for a feature, maybe 
if somebody were willing to produce a 
short which isn’t that expensive, to test 
the water. If it went out in a big enough 
distribution pattern... 

OK, let me ask y ou about that "fea- 
ture" thing. Is that a goal ofyours, to do 
a feature? 

Not as much anymore as it had been. 
I mean, I*ve devoted a terrifie amount of 
time, paper, and energy to writing and 
developing two features fully, with story- 
boards, scripts, and backup materials. In 
Quasi’s Cabaret, you know, I had a 
three minute traiter. I would completely 
tum around if somebody started to seem 
like something could happen, but it hasn * t 
seemed that way.. .and you get sick of 
just going to ail those meetings. I don’t 
know.. .1 go to a meeting and they’ll say, 
"Well, we really want to hear your ideas," 
and so you tell them, "That's it." 

The one feature I most wanted to do 
was sort of undercut by Roger Rabbit. 
Ail the time they were trying to get Roger 
Rabbit produced, I was trying to get an 
animation/live action combination pro¬ 
duced. 

Was this "Love That Makes You 
Crawl"? 

Yes. 

I met somebody who’d read that and 
thought that it was hilariously funny. 

I really like it, but I thought that once 
Roger Rabbit was a hit that I’d be hear- 
ing from people since it definitely had 
made the rounds. . .but that didn’t hap¬ 
pen. So 1% feeling pretty négative about 
animation. 

You know, I hâve to ask this, and I 
hope I don’ t step on any toes or any thing, 
but has your husband gotten involved at 
ail in the production of your films? 


No, not really. On Face Like a Frog, 
he bankrolled. 

I mean in getting a feature made. 

No, we’ve kept that separate. 

That’s not a bad idea. Usualty in 
Hollywood you take any thing you can get 
like everybody else does but I guess some 
things get made on their merit. I guess 
that’s pretty cynical! 

I think a lot of things get made on 
their merit but whether their merit is merit 
in somebody else’s eyes is unknown. I 
think a lot of things are based on some¬ 
body thinking it was good. I don’t think 
nepotism runs that deeply. I mean, bad 
judgement may not be merit but 
someebody thinks there is. 

I tried it once, and I don’t know... 

You mean going around and trying 
to sell things? 

It’s pretty 
degrading. 

Itis. And 
how many 
times can you 
keep doing 
that? And you 
run into people 
who really like 
that and they’re 
ail enthusiastic 
and unless 
you’re talking 
to the head of 
the company, 
forget it! 

You’re just go¬ 
ing to be shuf- 
flinginandout 
of doors for 
years. 

That 
seems what we 
hear about. A 
lot of success- 
ful work is because they went from studio 
to studio to studio. I know that was the 
case with Star Wars and also Driving 
Miss Daisy - they took it to every studio 
and everyone said "No one wants to see 
this kind of film." 

Persistence can pay off. But there’s 
a certain dating of material. I think about 
"Love that Makes You Crawl" and it was 
really appropriate at the time I wrote it. 

Well, let’s talk about something a bit 
more positive. 

I really like doing movie titles. I’ve 
done Ruthless People, Mannequin, 


Lover Boy and Madhouse. It's fun to do 
because producers tend to be very enthu¬ 
siastic about what you do. It’s not like 
doing a commercial where they browbeat 
you until you hâte the project, you hâte 
the people you’re working for, you hâte 
the work you’re doing - you know how it 
is with commercial. 

There’s a lot of pressures. 

And any type of crazy thing you do 
has to be tamed down. 

What commercial hâve you done? 

Just about none. Candilicious. 
That’s it. Aside from ones I did in the 
’70s when I worked at Snazelle but those 
really didn’t look like my style. 
Candelicious was fun to work with. I had 
a good time doing it. 

What is candilicious? 

It's aproduct that's no longer avail- 
able! 

Did you 
hâve any educa- 
tional back- 
g round in anima¬ 
tion or did you 
just pick it up on 
your own? 

I went to 
Smith College 
andmajoredinart 
and in my senior 
year I made an 
animated film on 
my own. ThenI 
studied one se- 
mester at the San 
Fransisco Art 
Instituteand took 
aclass with larry 
Jordon, but basi- 
cally I'm self 
taught. The 
Preston Blair 
book was where 
I leamed most of what I leamed. 

You mentionedSnazelle.. .Whenyou 
were at Snazelle Films did you get to do 
your own work? 

Nothing but my own! Every couple 
of years we'd get a commercial. 

And you’d hâve complété control 
over it? 

Not of the commercial, but we got 
them so rarely, so the rest of the time I had 
this extraordinary job situation where I 
was able to do my own work and get paid 
as if I was doing something! That was 
when I did ail the Quasi films. They 


Æ : A 





Animato! 25 








sponsored me. I came to work, went 
upstairs and came home at the end of the 
day just like a real job.You did a lot of 
commercials. 

I did a lot. Some of it was great. We 
did a lot of public service spots. They 
were definitety low budget. But when did 
the bigger clients, it was a nightmare. 
There is a change every day. .. 

. ..and compromises and just a wa- 
tering down. 

Movie titles aren’t 
like that except 
sometimes you 
don * t hâve enough 
time. In Manne¬ 
quin, we didn't 
hâve enough time 
plus we had to 
carry the storyline 
through the ani- 
mated titles to get 
from ancient 
Egypt to the mod¬ 
em times and show 
that she had met 
ail these people in 
history. So that 
was a little diffi- 
cult. In Lover Boy 
was really easy. 

Director Joan Michelin-Silver was en- 
thusiastic. That was the onbe I was least 
involved with because I was having a 
baby. Madhouse is my favorite; that 
was a lot of fun. Just the title alone... 

How do youfeel about the film? 

I liked Madhouse a lot. I thought it 
was hysterical.. .and nobody else liked it. 
It had some very funny scenes about cat 
vomit. 

It got a lot ofbad reviews. In fact, 
most of those films were not well re- 
ceived, and I can't remember any men¬ 
tion of the crédits. 

We got a review in People magazine 
on Lover Boy and they said the crédits 
were the best thing about the movie, and 
the New York Times , which liked Mad¬ 
house, really praised the titles - but Vari- 
ety said “cheap animated titles.” I was 
trying something different that was really 
UPA-like. I wasn’t doing it to be cheap, 
I was just curious trying to carry out two 
color schemes on characters where usu- 
ally I like color so much that on any 
character I hâve sometimes ten or twelve 
colors so I wanted to try just taking just 
two colors - black and white - and work- 


ing down on a character and see how it 
worked. A character was just green and 
black, but to the reviewer that must hâve 
looked cheap because it was just mono- 
chromatic whereas to me, it was experi¬ 
mental for myself. And I was very pleased 
with how it worked out. I liked what the 
animators did. 

You directed ail of these? 

Yes. 


And did you do any animation on any 
of them? 

I did animation on Ruthless People. 
I do ail the animation on the Sesame 
Street stuff because the budgets are so 
small I hâve to. I would rather not be 
doing ail the animation. I like the direct- 
ing and I really like the ideas. I love 
hearing music and getting concepts and 
working it ail out and then at that point it’s 
kind of finished for me. 

It seems like there are a lot more 
animated crédits now, and I haven* t even 
seen those you mentioned except for Ruth¬ 
less People. I worked on Earth Girls are 
Easy and Honey I Shrunk the Kids... 

Oh, and there was Who’s That Girl? 
and Uncle Buck with John Candy. 

And occasionally you see some 
blockbuster that has characters that look 
like The Beatles TV sériés running around 
doing something animated... 

Unfortunately, that*s probably go- 
ing to dry up the field again. It gets to be 
ordinary and it appears to accompany 
unfunny comédies to try to jelly up the 
audience. It does warm an audience up. 
I would like to do a serious movie. It 


doesn’t look too hard. 

I think you could do that. Although 
with your style and your bac kg round it 
would be hard to sell people on it. 

I would really love it if there were a 
market for animated shorts. % 

Well, there*s the Tournée and the 
Festival of Animation... 

They’re not enough to justify the 
time and cost of production. 

I think some 
people are making 
money at it, like Bill 
Ptympton who puis 
things out really fast. 

I keep thinking 
if I simplified my 
style it would be pos¬ 
sible to do shorts and 
not feel plowed un- 
der by the work load. 
But my style is so 
compulsively filled 
and I don’t really like 
simplicity. 

It's not as much 
fun to do simple work. 
It’s just drudgery. I 
g ues s my solution has 
been working on the 
computer. 

Are you actually doing inbetweens 
on the computer? 

Whatever I can get away with. IVs 
very hard to program the computer to do 
inbetweens, so we did a lot of straight 
ahead animation, drawing every draw- 
ing. But because you're saving it onto a 
big animation file, you don't hâve to keep 
track ofpaper or paint or film.. And you 
can color film and once you get ail the 
colors painted and can say **You know, 
that color would look a lot better " when 
you see them in context with each other 
moving and you can change them... 

But it’s electronic color. 

It is. It*s not nearly as appealing. 
And if it ends up on tape... 

.. .it’s going to be electronic color 
an y how. 

Right. Now tell me something about 
the sculptures... 

In the last couple of years I hâve 
been doing a lot of sculptures and paint- 
ing styrofoam but it’s getting harder to 
fmd! They’re phasing it out because it’s 
so bad for the environment. It’s also 
archivalry perfect because it never dété¬ 
riorâtes. 



26 Animato! 





You’re using the packing stuff. .. 

Yeah, I pick it out of garbage cans. 
I’m concemed about the environment as 
much as anyone, but this is already gar¬ 
bage. Actually, it ail started when I was 
intrigued by this idea and I thought I was 
going to make a lot of money making 
affordable sculpture. I started out with 
cardboard and I thought “This would be 
so great!” You’d get a place like Paper 
Moon or Oz would sell these things like 
giant cereal boxes. You’d buy them and 
they’d be ail silk screened and you’d take 
them home and foild them and stick them 
on your wall and there’s your sculpture. 
So I started doing that but cardboard is 
yucky material to work with. I had made 
very weak feeble attempts to make a 
gallery show in the past, where you go to 
one person and they’d say “no” and you’d 
wait another two years... 

You don't thrive on rejection. 

No, rejection doesn’t really bother 
me that much. I’vebeenthroughsomuch 
rejection that it just makes me aware that 
I hâve to go down my own road. It 
doesn’tdepressme is what I’m saying but 
it doesn’t make me want to run out and try 
to convince people. So anyway, I’ve 
been making sculptures out of styrofoam 
and I don’t know what to do with them.. 

There’s less pressure if you’re not 
trying to go to a gallery because you’re 
not trying to figure out what they’re look- 
ing for and doing that. It’s just more of a 
joyful feeling of doing it. So what if it 
isn’t accepted by the gallery, it’s still the 
same piece of work. Except now the 
room’s getting crowded. 

Do you sell your cels? 

Yes, I hâve. That is probably the 
single most lucrative aspect of my films 
is selling the cels. At Animation Plus, but 
they moved to Chicago. . .they sold a 
couple but i was asking big prices. 

I still hâve a box of F uturopolis cels 
but they don’ tsellbecause nobody’s heard 
ofit. There's some beautiful stuffTd love 
to buy. But bock to animation.. Do you 
actually go out and get jobs? 

No, the jobs corne to me. I haven’t 
really gone out looking. Mostly because 
of Ruthless People. 

T Hat's probably the most succès sful 
work you’ve donc. 

Well, itcertainly wasn’t Lover Boy! 

Yeah, I saw that in a video store and 
didn’t know anything about it. I should 
rent ail these and make a "Sally Cruik- 


shank title festival!" 

Just the animation! 

What would you make if you had an 
infinité budget? 

"The Love That Makes You Cry. MM 
or else that thing I did for Marv Newland. 

Animajam? 

No, it was a feature he was trying to 
get going called’Toons Times Nine." He 
started it before "toon" was such a big 
word out of Roger Rabbit. There were 
nine animators ail around the world he 
hired to do storyboards of different ver¬ 
sions of the Faust legend, in any way you 
wanted to interpret it at ail! 

I thought that was the best written 
and weirdest thing I ever did. I would 
love to do it. It was really funny. He 
couldn't get funding for that, not surpris- 
ingly because it was nine shorts with an 
unlikely subject mat ter. 

Animation is bad enough to raise 
money for, but shorts! 

People figure "they'll never hâve 
the attention span!" 

So what 0 s the plot for "Love 
That Makes You Crawl”? 

That's a love story be- 
tween Anita, who's a failed 
stewardess and secret 
agent Snozzy who’s try¬ 
ing to recover some 
used robots. In the 


process he joins a secret society and they 
go around the world on a sex tour on the 
Titanic H. It's fairly racy by animation 
standards. 

How much ofit would hâve been live 
action? 

Not much - about twenty minutes. 
Joe Dante was interested in directing the 
live action part. That script has been 
touring around and people are always 
interested and then scared of it. 

I read ail thesearticles about how 
animation is in this great new stage and I 
can't figure out what âge am I? (laughs) 
Even though there are more opportuni- 
ties, the thinking is just as rigid and un- 
willing to see anything else possibly work- 
ing. And then I look at the Beauty and 
the Beast drawings and I think "Is any¬ 
thing ever going to change?” 

So it's completely depressing here, 
actually! (laugh) 



Animato! 27 


XN 














Review. 


Disney's Beauty and the Beast: 

Superb Entertainment, Plain and Simple 


By Harry McCracken 

Since everybody else is comparing 
Beauty and the Beast to The Little 
Mermaid, let's be a little different and 
compare it to another Disney animated 
feature: 1981’s The Fox and the Hound. 

While that film had some good ani¬ 
mation, it was presented in a rough, hap- 
hazard form; Beauty has equally good 
animation and is among the most opulent 
Disney features of the past fifty years. 
Fox told its story in a bland, episodic 
way; Beauty makes its very old story 
involving from start to end. Most impor¬ 
tant^, Fox and the Hound was a film 
made by artists who had lost touch with 
their audience but Beauty and the Beast 
promises to be a huge mainstream hit. 

Obviously, things hâve changed a 
lot at the Disney studio over the past 
decade, and most of the change has been 
for the good. While Gary Trousdale and 
Kirk Wise's film may not be the instant 
classic that it’s already been labeled, it's 
an extremely winning musical romance 
that’s inventive from start to end. 

The movie isn't a carbon copy of 
The Little Mermaid, but there are de- 
cided similarities in approach. Both 
movies go for the Disney roots by being 
lushly adapted fairy taies, yet are dis- 
tinctly products of their own era. 

The Beauty is Belle (voiced by Paige 
O'Hara), a lookalike and soundalike for 
Judy Garland as Dorothy in The Wizard 
of Oz. Even though the story takes place 
in an 18th century French village. Belle is 
an appropriate 1990s rôle model: inde- 
pendent and gutsy, with a passion for 
books and reading that seems designed to 
please the librarians and literacy minded 
parents in the audience. 

Also rather contemporary is Gaston, 
a self-obsessed, macho fello w whose plan 
to wed the unwilling Belle makes him the 
closest thing this film has to a villain. 
Gaston eventually tries to hâve Belle’s 
father thrown into an insane asylum, then 
tries to slay the Beast, but for most of the 
film’s running time his greatest crime is 
being a sexist pig. 



candelabra, and 
Cogsworth, a fussy 
and self-important 
mantelclock. When 


Despite having relatively little screen 
time, it's the Beast who is the film's most 
interesting character. If you've only seen 
still pictures of the character's buffalo- 
like design, you can't really appreciate 
how fascinâting it is to watch this fellow, 
animated by Glen Keane and others, as he 
masks his pain and shyness with a fero- 
ciousexteriorthatslowlymeltsaway. He 
begins as a snarling thing that bounds 
about on ail fours, and ends up as Belle's 
soft-spoken, sensitive beau -- the trans¬ 
formation is seamless and perfectly natu- 
ral. Ail of this is immeasurably strength- 
ened by Robby Benson’s fine vocal per¬ 
formance. 

Most of the supporting cast is made 
up of the Beast's household staff, who 
were once people but hâve been tumed 
into objects like teapots, feather dusters, 
forks, and spoons. WÊ/Kk. 

Dozens of these en- 
chanted objects take 
part in "Be Our * *iS 
Guest,"aBusbyBer- 
keley-like musical 
number; the two 
who really win our 
hearts are Lumière, 
the Chevalier-like 


Beast is its use of music, a Disney trade- 
mark since at least the Silly Symphony 
era which had been considerably muted 
in recent years. (One suspects that Res- 
cuers Down Under will prove to hâve 
been the last nonmusical Disney cartoon 
we’ll see for quite awhile.) 

Even though Little Mermaid's songs 
were slightly stronger, Beauty's musical 
numbers are more inventively staged and 
well integrated. The showstopping num¬ 
ber is the flashy "Be Our Guest," but the 
best number is "Belle," the one that opens 
the film. It manages to be funny, wistful, 
and hummable while efficiently intro- 
ducing us to Belle and her village and 
setting the stage for much of what fol- 
lows. 

One does wonder why songwriters 
Alan Menken and the late Howard 


they re vert to human 
form at the movie's 
conclusion, it's a 
genuinely touching 
moment, since we've 
cared about them as 
people from the start. 
On the other hand, 
Mrs. Potts, a ma- 
tronly teapot voiced 
by AngelaLansbury, 
is never much more 


than a talking teapot 
withafamousvoice. 

One of the cen¬ 
tral delights of 
Beauty and the 


28 Animato! 





Ashman didn't give the Beast a chance to 
express his feelings in a musical number, 
when both Belle and Gaston were given 
that privilège. (In general, a little less 
Gaston and a little more Beast would 
hâve improved the film.) You can also 
quibble with the placement of a couple of 
songs in the story — "Gaston” cornes after 
we’re already well acquainted with the 
character, and "Be Our Guest" takes place 
long after we know about the Beast’s 
wondrous household staff. 

Over the past few years, Disney ani¬ 
mation has been moving away ffom the 
traditional storyboard-oriented approach 
towards live action scripting techniques, 
and Beauty has an "animation screen- 
play,"creditedtoLindaWoolverton. It's 
hard to say whether or not this new ap¬ 
proach to animation storytelling has had 
much effect on the finished film. For 
whatever reason, the movie is awfully 
talky, and the dialogue is often cliched 
and superfluous. 

There are also some significant plot 
problems, most of which relate to the 
Beast's origins as a Prince whose beastly 


form is punishment for having tumed 
away a poor old woman who was really a 
fairy. It's said that this happened ten 
years before the film's story but much of 
the story revolves around the fact that the 
Prince must find love by the end of his 
twenty-first year, which is soon approach- 
ing. This would mean that the Prince was 
only eleven at the time of his punishment, 
an idea which doesn't make a lot of sense 
and is not supported by his appearance in 
the stained glass tableaux which set up 
the story. 

Just as importantly, the Beast seems 
to live a rather short distance from Belle’s 
yet there's no evidence that any of the 
townspeople either recall the Prince, or 
know of the Beast until the film’s cl imac- 
tic scenes. This sloppy storytelling is 
troubling mainly because it’s so unneces- 
sary. 

If the plot problems are ultimately 
not ail that important, it's largely because 
the film’s visuals are so winning. The 
surface level artistry the lavish back- 
grounds, the use of unusual caméra angles 
and multiplane-like effects is what catches 
the eye at first, but 
undemeath the lav¬ 
ish use of color and 
spécial effects is 
some superb charac¬ 
ter animation. 

Beauty is the 
first Disney film to 
specifically identify 
the animators who 
worked on each ma¬ 
jor character, so you 
can, for instance, 
specifically compli¬ 
ment Nancy Kniep 
for heading up the 
team that made 
Cogsworth such a 
lovably bossy little 
timepiece. 

While the ani¬ 
mation is almost al- 
ways very good, the 
character designs are 
so inconsistent that 
they might hâve 
corne from half a 
doze different films. 
Belle is almost to- 
tally realistic; 
Gaston is an odd. 


semi-realistic fellow who just doesn’t 
look like a Disney character, and his 
henchman Le Fou is a completely 
cartoony création. Many of the towns¬ 
people look like rejects from Fleischer's 
Gulliver’s Travels. It's also worth not- 
ing that while Belle, whose animation 
was supervised by James Baxter, is usu- 
ally a very well drawn, believable charac¬ 
ter, there is more than one scene in which 
she looks and moves nothing like herself. 
More than fifty years after Snow White, 
the Disney artists still aren't quite as fac¬ 
ile with human beings as they are with 
humanized animais, beasts, and docks 
and candies. 

The nicest compliment you can pay 
to Beauty’s use of computer animation - 
-which is extensive and expert — is that 
there's not much to say about it, since for 
the most part the high tech tricks are 
seamlessly blended into the old-fashioned 
hand craftsmanship. The one notable 
exception is a ballroom scene in which 
everything other than Belle and the Beast 
was rendered on the computer, resulting 
in a photorealistic look that’s extremely 
eye-catching but out of step with the rest 
of the film. It's a lot like The Great 
Mouse Detective's use of very notice- 
able computer animation in the clocktower 
scene, which was a necessary first step 
towards the more subtle computer anima¬ 
tion in more recent Disney films. 

As good as Beauty and the Beast is, 
it doesn't hâve a lot to say that wasn’t said 
most memorably by other Disney ani- 
mated features of forty or fifty years ago. 
Its émulation of the classic Disney style 
is almost perfect, but it isn’t possible to 
recreate the newness of the early Disney 
features by imitating them. 

Directors Trousdale and Wise are so 
obviously talented that it would be nice to 
see what they might be capable of if they 
were unchained by the Disney house style. 
Unfortunately, it's only realistic to as¬ 
sume that the success of Mermaid and 
Beauty will lead to more Disney films in 
the same mold, rather than daring, experi¬ 
mental works. 

None of the above criticisms seem 
the leastbit important though, when you're 
actually watching the movie, or when 
you stroll out of the theater humming the 
tunes to yourself. Beauty and the Beast 
is superb entertainment, plain and simple 
and can you ask more of any film? 


Animato! 29 



Wise Beyond His Years 

Disney Director Kirk Wise talks about Beauty and the Beast, 
music and animation, and why he never became a garbage collector. 



byJimFanning 

Kirk Wise isbest 
known for his work 
on small, quirky proj- 
ects. At Disney for a 
relatively short six 
years, Wise brings a 
fresh approach to that 
time honored Disney 
genre, the feature 
length animated fairy 
taie. Here, Wise talks 
about his career and 
his directorial work 
with co-director Gary 
Trousdale on Beauty 
and the Beast, 

Disney’s 30th ani¬ 
mated feature. 

Whatdidyouand 
Gary Trousdale work 
on before being asked 
to direct Beauty and 
the Beast, your first 
feature directorial 
work? 

Gary and I were 
both in the Story De¬ 
partment for a while 
and we worked on a 
lot of the same proj- 
ects but never to- 
gether. Shortly after 
Rescuers Down Un- 
der. Gary and I got 
the chance to do storyboards for a Roger 
Rabbit short. At the time Disney was 
trying to develop several different ideas 
for Roger Rabbit shorts and pitch them to 
Steven Spielberg over at Amblin in the 
hopes of getting an okay on one. Amblin 
had already committed tomaking Tummy 
Trouble but they knew they wanted to do 
more, and so three different groups of 
storyboard artists put together three dif¬ 
ferent présentations. There was the prés¬ 
entation of Roller Coaster Rabbit, there 
was another one for a cartoon called "Hare 
in my Soup", and ours was called "Baby 


Buggy Blunder." It was ail about Roger 
Rabbit taking Baby Herman for a walk in 
the park in his baby buggy which, of 
course, rolls away while Roger is going 
to get ice cream. We boarded it in about 
a week. It was like commando style 
storyboarding because they wanted to 
hâve this pitch for Steven Spielberg that 
Friday. 

So we just sort of went into a frenzy 
of storyboarding and brainstorming and 
that was the first time we had actually 
collaborated on something. That was a 
lot of fun. We pitched it and it went very 


well. There was 
laughter throughout 
which is really encour- 
aging, but they even- 
tually decided to go 
with Roller Coaster 
which also tumed out 
to be a great cartoon. 
I’ve actually heard at 
Walt Disney Imagi- 
neering that they Te 
developing a ride idea 
about Roger Rabbit 
and a runaway baby 
carriage so who 
knows? 

Your next col¬ 
laboration was "Cra- 
nium Command" for 
Epcot Center. 

It was another 
rush job. Epcot 
needed this pre-show, 
this four minutes of 
animation for their 
Wonders of Life pa- 
vilion and so again, in 
like a couple weeks 
we had to put together 
this whole little short, 
sort of semi-educa- 
tional but very off-the- 
wall thing about the 
functions of the brain. 
We were working 
from an idea that they had over at Walt 
Disney Imagineering about this general 
named General Knowledge and the cra- 
nium commandos who were these little 
guys who live inside your skull and drove 
you around ail day like a tank. 

One of the things that was fun about 
doing it as quickly as we had to was that 
we really went out on a limb, going with 
sort of a wacky and fastpaced, irreverent 
style ofhumor and it went over. Andwe 
sort of got carte blanche to be as silly and 
as funny as we wanted to be, which is 
rare. 


30 Animato! 



You and Gary were doing storywork 
for this project? 

Yes, Gary and I both did the boards 
onitalong with TomSito and RobMinkoff 
and when the time came to actually pro¬ 
duce this four-minute short, the directing 
task sort of fell to me and Gary. We were 
most familiar with the mater ial at the time 
and they said we want you guys to direct 
it. So, boom, there we were. Our first 
time directing to do four minutes of ani¬ 
mation in 90 days. 

How did your involvement with 
Beauty and the Beast £come about? 

Beauty and the Beast was in devel¬ 
opment and Dick and Jill Purdum were 
slated as the original directors. And they 
had a whole style and direction for it that 
was very beautiful to look at but it was 
very formai, and -1 don’t know - sort of 
straight-laced. 

No disrespect intended because Dick 
Purdum is a brilliant guy and the work 
that I’ve seen him do in his commercials 
and stuff is wonderfiil, but the further 
along they got in the project, it became 
very clear that they wanted to do a very 
sort of formai, straight kind of a movie. 
And I think it got to the point where the 
upper management decided this wasn’t 
quite the direction they wanted to go. 
They wanted to musicalize it and bring in 
Howard Ashman and sort of try to repeat 
the Mermaid magic again. 

I don’t think that was really the way 
Dick Purdum wanted to go so he eventu- 
ally left the project which sort of created 
a vacuum. 

So Gary and I found ourselves one 
day with Charlie Fink, who was head of 
development at that time and he said 
there’s a strong possibility you guys might 
be directing Beauty and the Beast. Our 
jaws hit the floor and our hats blew off, 
and we sort of looked at each other in 
stunned disbelief. Both of us were scared 
to death but knew we would be crazy to 
say no. 

Since we knew that Howard Ash¬ 
man was going to be involved we got a 
great deal of enthusiasm for the project. 
Gary had worked with Howard before 
and I was a big fan since Little Mermaid 
and Little Shop of Horrors and I had 
always hôped to get the chance to work 
with him because he was a brilliant guy. 
I thought he could really bring an element 
of fun that really Disneyfied the material. 


So I was really inspired by his in¬ 
volvement and so was Gary. We found 
ourselves in New York in a snowy De- 
cember, sitting in a conférence room with 
Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzen- 
berg and Howard and the writer, Linda 
Woolverton. We had brought several 
artists along as sortof a commando squad 
to start creating storyboards and charac- 
ter designs and models. We had Chris 
Sanders and Sue Nichols and Bruce 
Woodside and Brenda Chapman. Our 
task was to try to hammer the storyline 
into a new shape, to try to devise new 
characters for this new storyline that 
Howard was working on. Since he had 
conceived it as a musical, he was trying to 
think of spots where the songs would tell 
the story, would support the story, and 
base the structure on that. 

What new approaches came out of 
those initial New York-based meetings? 

A lot of the time out there was spent 
trying to figure out songs, thoughts, what 
they might be, or who might sing them. A 
lot of the time was also spent thinking of 
what kind of characters can inhabit the 
Beast’s enchanted castle. 

The idea always existed that the Beast 
would hâve enchanted objects that would 
float around and do things for him. 
Howard hit upon the seemingly obvious 
ideas of giving them faces and names and 
Personal ities, and once we committed to 
that idea, everything started to click. 

We started to getreally excited about 
ail these little guys who’d be sort of a 
supporting cast. So that was really an 
exciting time. It was just sitting around 
developing these characters, trying to 
think of what their personalities might be 
and how they might relate to Beauty and 
the Beast. We kept trying to develop their 
personalities based on what they were - 
based on what properties the object might 
hâve and how that might translate into a 
human animatable character trait. 

The resuit was Cogsworth the dock, 
Lumière the candelabra, and Mrs. Potts 
the teapot. 

Those are the main ones. They’re 
sort of the Greek chorus who follow Belle 
and the Beast around and they carry a lot 
of the story and a lot of the songs. Those 
hâve been the most fun for me to see those 
corne tolife. Because I think it was really 
nice to see them get plussed at every 
opportuniy. 


How would you describe your rela- 
tionship with your co-director, Gary 
Trousdale? 

Actually, we’re very well suited for 
each other personality-wise. Gary and I 
find a lot of the same things funny which 
definitely helps a lot. And our tastes in 
movies and comedy and animation are 
very similar. 

You wouldn’t know that to look at 
us. Physically we’re about as different as 
any two people could be. Gary*s about 
6’3 M with a big bushy red beard, long red 
ponytail. He wears a visor and camou¬ 
flage pants at ail times. I always found it 
refreshing to walk into a meeting with 
executives wearing suits and ties and 
Gary would walk in with his ponytail and 
his visor and his camouflage pants and 
added just the right note of irreverence 
that I think animation thrives on. 

How did you and Gary share your 
directorial duties? 

Gary and I tend to collaborate a lot. 
Rather than each doing separate sé¬ 
quences we sort of split up areas of pro¬ 
duction. I’ilconcentrate more on anima¬ 
tion and the voice recording and Gary 
would concentrate more on layout and 
effects - but there was still a great deal of 
cross-pollinization. Gary would often 
corne in to criticize scenes or I would 
sometimes pop into layout. Just because 
that was sort of how we formally split it 
up, there was never a sense that any one 
area was one particular person’s turf. It 
was very give and take. 

What does Gary Trousdale as an 
individual bring to a project? 

Gary is one of the funniest storymen 
in the business, and easily one of the 
fastest story sketch artists I’ve ever seen. 
Gary is able to corne up with a zillion 
funny ideas at the drop of a hat and draw 
them up just as fast. Tremendously valu- 
able asset to hâve. I think Gary also has 
a fascination for ail things mechanical, ail 
things médiéval. He loves gothic castles 
and gargoyles and things of that nature 
and I think a lot of his influence was felt 
in the strength of the layout of this film. 
Gary also tries to give things a different 
spin, a slightly different twist. 

Gary’s usually not satisfied with 
doing things in the exact same old pre- 
dictable way. He always tries to look for 
ways to put a spin on it, make it some- 
thing slightly different than what you’ve 


Animato! 31 



seen before. I think that really came 
through in the design of the Beast. Gary 
was passionate about the Beast having a 
look that was not like any other look of 
beasts in previous versions that we'd 
seen before. 

I think that came through in the char- 
acter of Belle, too. Gary was very deter- 
mined that she not look like a dime-a- 
dozen Disney heroine. I hâve a tremen- 
dous affection for the old Disney films 
and sort of a traditional Disney character 
design and storytelling. Gary brings an 
irreverentsenseofhumortothat. Hewill 
sometimes push in directions that might 
be a little more different, a little more off 
center than I might necessarily choose. 
But I think ifs a really positive thing 
because Gary * s sensibilities helped things 
stay very fresh and alive. 

Can y ou expand on what y ou bring 
to an animated project? 

I think I balance Gary because Fm a 
story structure nut. And that cornes ffom 
ail ofmy influences. Ihaveatremendous 
affection for old movies, drama and lit- 
erature and so Fm crazed about story 
structure. If sprobably the thing I was the 
most critical and passionate about in this 
film: Trying to make sure that the first 
and second and third acts built on each 
other, working as best I could with the 
writer and the storyboard artists to create 
twists and tums and unexpected moments 
and set up ideas early in the movie that 
would pay off later. 

And again, I think both Gary and I 
hâve apretty good sort of built-in sense of 
entertainment -1 hope! We fmd a lot of 
the same things funny and a lot of the 
same things sad or moving or exciting. 
The biggest challenge as a director is you 
hope that the things that excite you, move 
you, thrill you, or interest you will be the 
same things that excite, thrill, move, or 
interest most people. 

What was it like working with How¬ 
ard Ashman? 

Working with Howard was definitely 
a privilège because I think he’s almost 
single-handedly responsible for helping 
put Disney animation back on the map 
with Little Mermaid. His background in 
musical theater was so strong he found a 
way to marry animation and musical thea¬ 
ter. Actually it wasn’t so much marry as 
he saw a natural cross-pollinization be- 
tween the two art forms, American musi¬ 


cal theater and American animated fea- 
tures. Both are home grown art forms and 
owe a lot to each other. It was Howard 
who best understood the relation of the 
two. So when he helped structure the 
story for Beauty and the Beast he struc¬ 
turel it very much in the same spirit as a 
traditional musical where the songs sup¬ 
port the story and propel the action of the 
story and are not just tacked on. So he 
was instrumental in that regard, as well as 
being very much involved in the casting 
of the voices and development of the 
characters. 

Ashman’s death earlier this year 
seems a great lost to Disney animation, 
although he also wrote songs with part¬ 
ner Alan Menken for the forthcoming 
Aladdin. How would you sum up How¬ 
ard Ashman? 

Extremely passionate. He had tre- 
mendous integrity. More than anyone 
else that Fve worked with outside of 
Disney. 

Howard had a really good instinc- 
tual understanding of what worked best 
for animation. He was a very good visual 
thinker. And the fact that he grew up 
enjoying these films as much as we did 
was tremendous. 

That was the thing that bridged the 
gap between us. 

He knew as much 
about these things 
as we did. Ifs 
sometimes diffi- 
cult to work with 
people from the 
outsideorfrom dif¬ 
ferent medium, 
like live action, and 
getthem tobeable 
to relate to think- 
ing for animation. 

Howard was 
a complété natural. 

Even his musicals 
like Little Shopof 
Horrors hâve a 
largerthanlifecar- 
toony feeling. I 
usedtolistentothe 
Little Shop of 
Horrors score. It 
had a neat, car- 
toonyflair,sofora 
long time I’m 
thinking, gee, 


wouldn't Little Shop of Horrors make a 
neat animated film. It was eventually 
made in live action but eventually Howard 
came to animation. So that was sort of a 
dream corne true for a lot of people. 

Let’s talk about the movie itself. Tell 
us about the visual style of Beauty and 
the Beast. 

I think we’ve been really successful 
in working with Brian McEntee, the art 
director, in creating a very lush, very 
painterly look to the piece. We were 
really trying to bring that feel of paintings 
from the French Romande period to life 
and create an art direction style that would 
be evocative of that, something very lush 
and soft and romande. 

I think we brought back a lot of the 
look, a lot of the production value that 
people associate with a lot of the earlier 
Disney films. It was a real challenge to 
live up to films like Bambi and Pinoc- 
chio, but with the talent that we had, 
painters and the art direction and the new 
technologies that we hâve, I think we 
were able to recapture a great deal of the 
beauty of the earlier films, while at the 
same time telling a story about fairy taie 
romance in a '90s context. 

You mentioned before the design of 
the two title characters. What were the 



32 Animato! 




challenges in coming up with a brand 
new beast? 

It was a long time coming. In the 
first version, the Beast was designed as 
sort of a big, burly man with a babboon 
head. 

While that was interesting, we didn’t 
feel that we were really taking advantage 
of the ani- 
m a t i o n 
possibili¬ 
tés. Most 
of the ver¬ 
sions we’d 
seen of the 
story usu- 
ally had 
just a man 
with a 
f u n n y 
head, and 
wethought 
itwouldbe 
m u c h 
more exciting from an animation stand- 
point if the spell that was cast on the Beast 
would affect his entire body so he would 
walk like a human, like an animal, just 
sort of caught between two worlds. 

Chris Sanders started working on 
designs that combined a lot of different 
animal forms. Like buffalo homs and a 
bear-like body and a wolf-like tail. Glen 
Keane became involved and made fre¬ 
quent trips to the zoo and sketched a lot of 
different animais, ended up with an ani¬ 
mal that's sort of a combination of ail 
beasts, so he looks familiar yet you can’t 
quite pinpoint what sort of animal he is. 
He has a lion mane and buffalo head and 
agorillabrow, buffalo homs,boar’s tusks, 
so he’s sort of a mish-mash. 

The other real challenge was making 
sure that the design would be one that 
couldconvey émotion. Iknowthatpeople 
were concemed that if we got too fantas- 
tic with the design, people wouldn’t be 
able to relate human feelings to this char- 
acter. And we sort of felt that, well, that’s 
what Disney is in the business of doing - 
- allowing the audience to feel émotions 
for things that aren’t necessarily human. 
The studio has a history of assigning 
personaljties to things as diverse as, you 
know, everything from oysters to sports 
cars, as well as tigers, dogs, and bears. I 
thought that we could push the Beast 
pretty far and still retain an élément of 


humanity. I think Glen was really suc- 
cessful in his drawings in capturing the 
humanity beneath ail the fur. 

What obstacles were there in creat- 
ing Belle, the “Beauty" of Beauty and 
the Beast? 

That was another toughie. One of 
the toughest things about designing a 


Disney heroine, as Gary has pointed out, 
was that many times the Disney heroines 
are like the same girl with different hair. 
We definitely wanted to avoid the same- 
girl-with-different-hair syndrome. I 
thought Ariel was really successful in 
The Little Mermaid because she broke 
the mold and had a really fresh, sort of 


American teenage look, with apersonal- 
ity that was very winning, with a lot of 
sparkle and life, and was very contempo- 
rary. 

One of the challenges in créâting 
Belle was to try to make a heroine that 
was contemporary but had a whole differ¬ 
ent set of attributes and positive qualités 
that Ariel might not necessarialy hâve 
had. I think the things they hâve in 


common is they’re both very independ- 
ent and strong willed and hâve a clear-cut 
goal that they try to pursue. And that was 
something especially Linda Woolverton 
the writer felt was very important: mak¬ 
ing her an active character who makes 
things happen, doesn’t hâve things hap- 
pen to her. That was really sort of di- 
gressing from the original fairy taie. 

In the original fairy taie. Belle was a 
more passive character and her father 
cornes back, after stealing the Beast’s 
rose and says, “Oh my God, the Beast 
wants you to live with him now” and she 
says, “Okay, 1*11 do it for you” and goes 
off and lives with the Beast. 

In our version of the story. Belle 
ends up making her trek to the castle to 
rescue her father and offers her life in 
exchange for his, sort of as an act of noble 
self-sacrifice. We found that by doing 
that, that was just enough spin on it to 
make her be the active protagonist. As far 
as her design is concemed, we wanted to 
give her a fuller face, a fuller feel to her 
features, not quite as sort of skinny and 
angular as some of the ones that hâve 
been done in the past. 

The overall art direction was one of 
a very soft look. We wanted to give Belle 
sort of a soft look as well. We didn’t want 
her to be a blonde because one of the 
things that 
we thought 
would écho 
t h e 
storylineof 
beauty is 
only skin 
deepwasto 
make Belle 
beautiful 
but in an 
old-fash- 
i o n e d , 
plain way. 
So we tried 
not to make 
her Iode too 
overly made up or overly glamorous. We 
wanted her to look a little like the girl next 
door. 

The other thing we wanted to do to 
set her apart was give her an intellectual 
interest. We gave her a passion for books 
which ends up a theme throughout the 
whole film. Belle is a reader and a lover 
of fairy taies and wishes her life to be 
more like them. In this mundane little 




Animato! 33 



peasant village where she lives, she sort 
of escapes to the world of fantasy and 
ends up being plunged into a fairy taie 
that has more twists and tums and ups and 
downs than anything she’d ever read. 

Even though Ariel wasn’t a passive 
character, The Little Mermaid was criti - 
cized by some for being sexist because 
she sacrifîced everything to win a man. 
Are you dealing with these issues in work- 
ing with Belle’s character? 

That’s always a difficult thing about 
adapting any fairy taie - trying to be true 
to the original yet making it contempo- 
rary enough for an audience now to relate 
to. And I think that was one of the reasons 
we concentrated so hard on trying to 
make Belle a strong and positive female 
character instead of a wimpering little 
victim or damsel in distress. 

I think the other thing that works for 
Belle is that there’s no one in town who 
understands her. Belle is sort of a misfit, 
an oddball. 

Ironically, the first person to share 
her interest in books and her fantasies 
tums out to be the Beast, this guy you’d 
never think in a million years that she’d 
hâve anything in common with. So I’m 
hoping that’s one of the things that makes 
it sort of a love story for the ’90s, as well 
as for ail time, is the emphasis on positive 
inward qualities rather than outward ex- 
temal appearances. I think it’s an impor¬ 
tant story that has to be told over and over. 
W e ’ r e 
c o n - 
fronted so 
much with 
the me¬ 
dia’s idea 
of what is 
perfec¬ 
tion, what 
is désir¬ 
able, so 
much of it 
is ideal- 
ized mas¬ 
culine or 
féminine 
forms. So 
much em¬ 
phasis is 
placed on 
surface, I 
think it’s 
valuable 


to tell the story that very clearly empha- 
sizes that beauty’s skin deep. 

What about yourown story? Whatis 
your personal background? 

I was bom in San Francisco. My 
parents were of the hippie génération so I 
grew up in the Bay area in and around that 
culture. I spent a couple of years in a 
commune when I was 5 or 6 with my 
parents and their friends. It was like 
several families living in a big ranch 
house in Novato, California. Lots of 
people coming and going, but I was al¬ 
ways surrounded by people, surrounded 
by other kids, and it was a very warm, 
happy, loving environment. I really en- 
joyed it. 

I was surrounded by a lot of artists 
and musicians and ail kinds of different 
types. Sort of became part of this whole 
counter culture in the 1960s. 

Some of my earliest memories are 
from that period. The music I was raised 
with was Bob Dylan and the Beatles. 
That was the music my parents listened to 
so naturally I listened to it as well. 

Very early on I became interested in 
drawing, inspired by my dad who had 
also been an artist. He drew and I was 
always amazed, it was like some sort of 
really neat magic trick watching him draw. 
It was a magic trick I really wanted to 
leam, so he was the First person who sort 
of encouraged my interest in drawing. 
My mom and dad always made sure there 


were lots of paper and pendis and cray¬ 
ons around the house, so there was never 
a lack of that. 

One of the earliest things I remem- 
ber doing that sort of got me interested in 
drawing as a life’s pur suit was that in the 
SanFrancisco Chronicle e$ery week they 
had this little thing in the comics section 
called " Junior Art Champion" where kids 
would send in their drawings and they 
would pick one and they would publish it 
next to ail the other comics, right next to 
"Peanuts" and "Blondie" and "Andy 
Capp". Every week 1 would look at the 
comics and I would look at the "Junior 
Art Champion" and think, boy, that would 
be really cool to be published in there. 

I was about six at the time, but I 
remember my earliest ambition before 
wanting to be an artist was to be a garbage 
man because that just looked like a lot of 
fun to a kid. It looked like great fun. You 
could get up before dawn, you could 
make a lot of noise rattling the cans, and 
you got to ride on this big truck. You got 
to pour the garbage in and watch the 
machine smash the garbage. I followed 
the garbage men up and down the Street. 

I was so excited about being a gar¬ 
bage man that I went inside and I drew a 
picture of the garbage men, the garbage 
truck, I wrote Bay Cities Refuse on the 
side of the garbage truck, and unbe- 
knownst to me my mom sent it off to the 
San Francisco Chronicle. And lo and 



34 Animato! 




behold, a few weeks later I opened the 
paper and there was my drawing. I won! 
I was that week’s Junior Art Champion. 
My jaw hit the floor, my eyes bugged out, 
I couldn’t believe it. And the 
paper sent me a check for $10 
and the sanitalion department 
sent me a letter thanking me 
for the free advertising. 

I was amazed. I’dnever 
gotten this much attention in 
my life. I knew then and there 
— my interest immediately 
changed from being a garbage 
man to being a cartoonist. 

Soyourfirstartistic inter - 
est was the comic strips? 

The y were always my 
passion. I was a tremendous 
fan of "Peanuts", I’d 

spend hours pouring over the 
stuff. And I’d always loved 
animation too. My parents 
always took me to the Disney 
movies when they would corne 
out. But for a long time Disney 
animation always seemed like 
this sort of unattainable thing. 

It was so beautiful and capti- 
vating and magical, but it 
looked so hard to do. It was 
sort of intimidating, but I knew 
that I was always interested in 
doing it. 

How dut you become interested in 
animation as a career? 

Around the fourth or fifth grade a 
friend of mine took a community cerner 
course called film animation where the 
kids were making films on Super 8 with 
cutouts, clay, and models, and he asked 
me to corne along with him one day. So 
I started helping him on his film. He was 
making like a space movie or something 
and I started drawing ail these space ships 
and handing them to him and he put them 
under the caméra and then he put his 
name on it - which I guess was good 
training for what I would do in the future. 

I became so interested in making 
these little Super 8 films that next time the 
ciass came around I took it myself and 
started making my own films and putting 
my own name on them. So I was making 
Super 8 films for quite a few years and 
that’s when I first became interested in 
doing animation as a future goal. 

I was midway through high school 


doing comic strips for the school paper 
and the yearbook and stuff like that when 
I found out about Cal Arts. And I knew 
right then and there that this is the school 


I hâve to get into. I put together a portfo¬ 
lio of ail the drawings I could find and 
submitted them to Cal Arts and eventu- 
ally got accepted to study animation. 

What wasyourfirst professional ani¬ 
mation expérience? 

During my fourth year at Cal Arts I 
got a chance to do some freelance anima¬ 
tion for Darrell Van Citters on the Sport 
Goofy Soccermania short. And that was 
my first exposure to animation in the 
professional world. I leamed how to 
properly fill out an exposure sheet, do my 
timing charts so an assistant could follow 
it up, stuff you never had to worry about 
at Cal Arts because you were your own 
cameraman, you were your own assis¬ 
tant, you were your own film editor. 

Shortly after that I got a job working 
for Jerry Rees on The Brave Little 
Toaster, doing experimental animation 
and that was a lot of fun. That was a neat 
little project --1 enjoyed working with a 
small crew. 


Shortly after that I ended up at 
Disney. I had always wanted to work for 
Disney. It was something that became 
really clear when I was in high school, 
that that’s where I 
eventually wanted to 
be. 

What were some 


ofthe Disney projects 
you worked on? 

I did some ani¬ 
mation on The Great 
Mouse Détective - 
that was the first thing 
I worked on here, do¬ 
ing a little bit of Basil 
and Dawson. And I 
did animation and 


some storyboarding 
on Oliver and Com¬ 


pany and I did some 
storyboarding for a 
short film, a computer 
animated film called 


Oit Spot andLipstick. 
After that I went into 


story and started do¬ 
ing story develop¬ 
ment and storyboards 
on Mickey Mouse 
featurettes and ended 


up doing storyboards 
for Prince and the 


Pauper. 

work on Family Dog 
for Steven Spielberg? 

I was an animator and also did some 


storyboards on that original Family Dog 
épisode for the Amazing Stories show 
onNBC. That was a lot of fun. That was 
one of the more fun projects I had worked 
on up to that point. Again, that was a very 
small group working on a project that had 
a very sort of irreverent off-the-wall style 
of humor with not real typical animation 
designs — they were based on Tim 
Burton’s sketches - and it tumed out to 
be a lot of fun. Most of the staff on Family 
Dog were Cal Arts alumni, some of them 
were ex-Disney animators. So it was in 
the spirit of Disney character animation 
with a real irreverent twist to it. 

What are some of your favorite mo¬ 
ments in Beauty and the Beast? 

One of my favorite scenes in the 
movie is when Cogsworth the Clock has 
to break the news to the Beast that Belle 
is not coming down to dinner. One of the 


Animato! 35 




things that makes it wonderful is the 
hilarious vocal performance by David 
Ogden Stiers where he’s hedging and 
hawing and can’tbring himself to tell the 
Beast the bad news and he goes through 
about a dozen different expression 
changes within a span of seconds. You 
can just see this little guy’s confidence 
dissolve in the face of this monster. I 
think it’s just priceless. 

Another one of my favorite little 
sequences is where the Beast is outside 
Belle*s door pounding on it and demand- 
ing that she corne down to dinner and the 
objects are trying to calm him down and 
tell him to be gentle. 

There’s just some wonderful mo¬ 
ments in that where I think it’s the first 
time in the movie where we see a humor- 
ous side to his personality that we can 
enjoy beneath ail of his bluster and anger. 
There’s humor to be had over the fact that 
he’s completely at odds with this girl 
who’s the first person he’s ever encoun- 
tered who won’t do what he tells them to 
do. 

One of my favorite characters is Chip, 
the little teacup. Originally we knew we 


wanted in our cast of supporting charac¬ 
ters a “cute” one, a Dopey if you will. The 
idea of a music box who didn’t speak but 
instead had a musical chiming voice 
seemed 1 ikeanatural. ButLindaWoolver- 
ton came up with the idea of giving Mrs. 
Potts a son, a little chipped teacup named 
Chip, and we started including him in 
more scenes, and when it came around to 
voice casting we found this little kid 
named Bradley Pierce who was just a 
natural. A very cute kid, very funny. 

After his first recording session we 
realized, God, this little guy is hilarious 
so we started including his voice in early 
screenings for the film for the staff and he 
got such a great reaction, and we kept 
working him into more and more se¬ 
quences. The more sequences we worked 
him into, the more the music box started 
to get pushed further out of the movie. 
We found ourselves with two cute char¬ 
acters. It was like two Dopey s. One of 
them had to play second fiddle to the 
other. And I think it was just a lot easier 
to corne up with business for Chip be- 
cause he could talk. 

So eventually a lot of the action of 


the story that the music box had to carry 
we started assigning to Chip and it worked 
out just fine. Now the music box appears 
in a tiny little cameo, one shot in the film. 
Our little salute to him. Chip sort of 
behaves a little bit like that kid who sits 
next to you in the movie theater con- 
stantly leaning over to his mom, saying, 
“What are they going to do now, mom? 
Where are they going? What’s happen¬ 
ing?” I think he sort of provides that 
function for the audience. 

What sort of animated feature do 
you hope to direct as a follow-up to Beauty 
and the Beast? 

As much as I enjoyed working on 
fairy taies, I still hâve a desire to work on 
something a little more contemporary, 
something that might hâve a little more of 
an edge to it, something a little more 
contemporary, a little more hip, a little 
more off center in the way that Cranium 
Command was off center. That’s a very 
natural part of my personality and my 
humor and Gary’s as well. 

I hope that Gary and I work together 
again and can work on something like 
that. 


36 Animatol 



THE CYSTIC FIBROSIS 
FOUNDATION OF CHICAGO 


IS GRATEFULLY ACCEPTING DONATIONS OF 
ANIMATION ART & 

FINE COLLECTIBLES 


FOR IHEIR UPCOMING CHARITY AUCIÏON 
APRIL 25th 1992 


THANKS TO GENEROUS FUNDING, SCIENTISTS ARE ON THE BRINK 
OF FINDING A CURE FOR CYSTIC FIBROSIS-THE NUMBER ONE 
GENEHC KILLER OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG ADULTS IN THE UNITED 
STATES. YOU CAN HELP FIG HT THE BATTLE AGAINST THIS PAIN FU L 
DISEASE. PLEASE DONATE YOUR ANIMATION ART AND FINE 
COLLECTIBLES. YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE! 


FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT: 

THE CYSTIC FIBROSIS FOUNDATION OF 
CHICAGO 

150 WEST MICHIGAN AVENUE, SUITE 400 
CHICAGO, IL 60601 
(312) 236-4491 


ALL DONORS WILL RECEIVE A RECEIPT 
FOR THE RETAIL VALUE OF THEIR 
DONATION. ALL DONATIONS MUST BE 
RECEIVED AT THE CHICAGO CYSTIC 
FIBROSIS FOUNDATION OFFICE N 
LATER THAN MONDAY, APRIL 20, 1992. 


Adventures of the Gummi Bears 

A Critical Guide to the First Three Seasons 



A wicked knight. Fearsome ogres. 
A ferocious dragon. Unearthly trolls. An 
evil sorceress. Powerful wizards. High- 
flying Carpies. Giants. Poachers! 

Who can save the peaceful kingdom 
of Dunwyn ffom these terrible threats? 

Gummi Bears. 

Yes, a small band of miniature mé¬ 
diéval bears, shrouded in legend and fairy 
taies, risk their secret existence to aid 
their human friends. 

The saga of the Gummi Bears began 
September 1985, lasting four seasons on 
NBC, a fifth season on ABC, then a sixth 
season in syndication on “The Disney 
Aftemoon” schedule, for a full 65 épi¬ 
sodes. This September, the show moved 
to The Disney Channel. 

The following is an épisode guide to 
the first three seasons of Gummi Bears, 
presented in broadcast order. Some sto- 
ries are 22 minutes in length (not includ- 
ing commercials); others are 11 minutes, 
and are indicated as “a” and “b” listings. 
Tve rated the épisodes on this scale: * 
poor, ** fair, *** good, **** excellent, 
***** outstanding. 


ProducerlDirector: Arthur Vitello 
Associate Producer: Tom Ruzicka 
S tory Editor: Jymn Magon 
Storyboard Directors: Thom Enri- 
quez, Hank Tucker, Rob La Duca, 

Steve Gordon 

Animation Supervisors: David 
Block, Bob Zamboni, John Ahem 
Key Layout Stylist: Ed Wexler 
Key Background Stylist: Gary 
Eggleston 

Additional Background Styling (sec¬ 
ond season): Michael Humphries 

Color Key Stylist: Janet Cummings 
Production Manager: Olivia Miner 
Assistant Director: Kent Holaday 
(first season); Randy Chaffee (second 
season) 

Animation Checker: Ann Oliphant 
Post Production Coordinator: Ken 
Tsumura 

Production Assistants: Aida Beld- 
erol-Martin, Leigh Anne Locke, Judy 
Zook 

Post Production Supervisor: Rich 
Harrison 

Supervising Editor: Robert S. 


Editor: Willy R. Allen (first season); 
Craig Jaeger (second season) 

Assistant Editors: Shelley Brown, 
Robert A. Martel (first season), Rick 
Hinson, Glenn Lewis (second season) 
Music Coordinator: Chris Montan 
“Gummi Bear” theme words and 
music by Silversher and Silversher, Music 
composed and conducted by Thomas 
Chase and Steve Rucker. 

Track Reading: Skip Craig 
Casting Facilities: The Voicecaster 
Recording and Mixing F acilities: B 
& B Sound 

Videotape Facilities: Complété Post 
Animation production: TMS Enter¬ 
tainment, Inc. 

Cast: 

Corey Burton: Gruffi Gummi, Toadie 
(second season) 

Roger C. Carmel: Sir Tuxford (sec¬ 
ond season) 

Jim Cummings: Chummi 
J une Foray: Grammi Gummi, “The 
Most Peaceful Dragon in the World” 
Bob Holt: Giant with the Wishing 
Stone, Dom Gordo of Ghent 


38 Animato! 





Christian Jacobs: Cavin (first sea- 

son) 

Brett Johnson: Cavin (second sea- 

SOn) 

Katie Leigh: Sunni Gummi 
Lorenzo Music: Tummi Gummi, the 
Bubble Dragon 

Noelle North: Cubbi Gummi, Prin- 
cess Cal la 

Pat Parris: Trina 
Rob Paulsen: Gusto 
Will Ryan: Unwin, Ogres, King 
Carpie 

Michael Rye: King Gregor, Duke 
Igthom, Gowan 

Bill Scott: Gruffi Gummi, Toadie, 
Sir Tuxford, Angelo Davini, Ogre 
Lennie Weinrib: Zorlock 
Paul Winchell: Zummi Gummi, 
Slumber Sprite 

1. A New Beginning by Douglas 
Hutchinson.**** 

Duke Igthom and his ogres build a 
giant catapult with which to crush Castle 
Dunwyn. Meanwhile, young Cavin dis¬ 
covers that Gummi Bears aren’t fairy 
taies after ail, and they agréé to help 
him stop the Duke. 

2a. The Sinister Sculptor by Mi¬ 
chael Maurer.*** 

Angelo Davini is a con artist posing 
as a sculptor, who uses a magic powder to 
freeze live animais into statues. Asagift 
for Princess Calla, King Gregor buys four 
of his sculptures — that are real Gummi 
Bears. Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse 
cameo as two statues. 

2b. Zummi Makes It Hot by Dou¬ 
glas Hutchinson .***♦ 

Grammi requires pure water to make 
Gummiberry Juice, but something has 
clogged the plumbing System. Theprob- 
lem is at the Gummi pumping station 30 
miles to the northeast — in the land of 
Drekmore, home of the ogres. 

3a. Someday My Prints Will Corne 
by Steve Hulett, Richard Hoag, andJymn 
Magon* 

Zummi and Tummi find an ancient 
Gummi machine, a huge footprint maker 
used as a dragon decoy. The machine 
runs amok, drawing the attention of Sir 
Tuxford ând his knights — and a real 
dragon. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck 
cameo as two bath toys. 

3b. Can I Keep Him? by Bruce 
Talkington .** 


Zummi gives arestless Cubbi a magic 
flûte and sends him outside to play with 
Sunni. At a nearby lake, the cubs dis¬ 
cover the flûte can control a flying ser¬ 
pent. The serpent carries them to Castle 
Drekmore, where they are captured by 
Duke Igthom. 

4. A Gummi in a Gilded Cage by 
Dianne Dixon and Jymn Magon. ***1/2 

The Carpies are fearsome birdlike 
créatures who nest in the highest moun¬ 
tain in the land. Their king wants a 
“songbird," so they capture Sunni to sing 
for them. Zummi, Cubbi and Gruffi take 
off after them in an ancient Gummi flying 
machine, but the Carpies dismantle it in 
mid-air. 

5a. The Oracle by Bruce Talking- 
ton .***♦ 

The Duke and his ogres consul t an 
Oracle for the secret of Gummiberry Juice. 
But the Oracle has a secret of its own. 

5b. When You Wish Upon a Stone 
by Michael Maurer.* 

Cavin wishes that he were as big as 
the bully Unwin, so he and Cubbi joumey 
to the Cavem of Shadows to fmd the 
Wishing Stone, which happens to be 
guarded by a giant. 

6. A Gummi By Any Other Name 
by Douglas Hutchinson .**♦* 

Zummi gives Sunni a magic hat, 
which enables her to tum into anyone she 
names. In a variation of The Prince and 
the Pauper, Princess Calla leaves the castle 
to live as a peasant, while Sunni takes her 
place. Both are captured by Duke Igthom, 
and later, Calla discovers a startling se¬ 
cret. 

7a. Loopy, Go Home by Douglas 
Hutchinson* 

Cubbi rai ses a wolf cub whose mother 
was taken by a poacher. 

7b. A-HuntingWeWill Go byKim- 
berlay Wells and Mike Lyons.* 

A giant boar terrorizes the country- 

side. 

8. The Secret of the Juice by Mi¬ 
chael Maurer .****♦ 

Grammi Gummi teaches Sunni the 
secret of making Gummiberry Juice. 
While Grammi is picking berries, she is 
captured by the ogres and taken to Castle 
Drekmore, where the Duke has built a 
massive juice-making factor y. The 
Gummies race to the rescue before the 
Duke can force the secret from Grammi. 

9a. The Fence Sitter by Bruce Talk¬ 


ington.* 

The Bears hâve to stop a large bird 
from eating ail the Gummiberries. 

9b. Night of the Gargoyle by Mi¬ 
chael Maurer .*** 

Ifs Monarch’s Day, and Duke 
Igthom sends King Gregor a stone gar¬ 
goyle in the guise of a Gummi Bear 
présent. That night the gargoyle cornes to 
life, and scampers to the King’s cham- 
bers to kill him. 

10a. Sweet and Sour Gruffi by Ran- 
dal Case* 

Tired of Gruffi*s bossiness, Zummi 
zaps him with a spell to s weet en his 
attitude — with disastrous results. 

10b. Duel of the Wizards by Dou¬ 
glas Hutchinson.*** 

A mi s unders tanding leads to a battle 
of magic between Zummi and the wizard 
Dom Gordo of Ghent. 

lia. What You See Is Me by Bob 
Langhans .***** 

Running from the ogres, Tummi finds 
refuge with Trina, a blind shepherdess 
who proves to be more than a match for 
Duke Igthom. 

1 lb. Toadie’s Wild Ride by Bruce 
Talkington.**** 

Banished from Castle Drekmore for 
losing the Duke’s battle plans, Toadie 
stumbles into a Quick Tunnel coaster, 
which takes him to Gummi Glen. 

12a. Bubble T rouble by Bruce Talk¬ 
ington.** 

Sunni makes friends with a baby 
dragon whose hiccups produce explosive 
bubbles. Igthom finds the dragon and 
uses it as a weapon against Castle 
Dunwyn. 

12b. Gummi in a Strange Land by 
Douglas Hutchinson.*** 

Gruffi falls under the spell of a Sleep- 
ing Sprite. To snap him out of the spell, 
Grammi and Cubbi pursue the Sprite into 
the deadly swamps of Drekmore. 

13a. Light Makes Right by Michael 
Maurer.***** 

Years ago, the Great Gummi Scope 
was built for communications between 
the Bears who left Dunwyn and the Bears 
who remained. Its beam of light could 
also be focused into a powerful laser 
weapon. Duke Igthom spots the Gummi 
Scope when Zummi tries to contact the 
Bears across the sea. The Duke captures 
the Scope and aims it toward Castle 
Dunwyn. 


Animato! 39 



Second Season (1986-1987) 


Stories by Jymn Magon & Arthur 
Vitello. 

14. Up, Up and Away teleplay by 
Doug Hutchinson.*** 

The Bears meet Chummi, a Bear 
whose balloon-boat crashes in Gummi 
Glen. Cubbi wishes to fly with him to lhe 
land of lhe Great Gummies, but the 
Bears’ plans are spoiled when Igthom 
finds and takes control of lhe balloon ship 
for an aerial aitack on Castle Dunwyn. 

15a. Faster Than a Speeding 
Tummi teleplay by Bruce Talkington.*** 

Zummi inadvertantly zaps Tummi 
with a speed spell, which tums out to be 
unstable. 

15b. For a Few Sovereigns More 
teleplay by Mark Zaslove.***** 

The Duke wants bounty hunter Flint 
Shrubwood to make his day by bringing 
in a Gummi Bear. 

16a. Over the River and Through 
the Trolls teleplay by Bruce 
Talkington.** 

Introducing Cavin’s grandfather 
Gowan, a former knight who believes in 
Gummi Bears. Gowan is guarding a 
shipment of gold,and a band of troll high- 
waymen seek to rob it. 

16b. You Snooze, You Lose tele¬ 
play by Bruce Talkington .****♦ 

Igthom’s potion puts ail of Dunwyn 
to sleep, and the only ones who can pro- 
tect the castle are Calla, Cavin and the 
Gummi Bears. 

17. The Crimson Avenger teleplay 
by Mark Zaslove.*** 

Cubbi becomes The Crimson 
Avenger, defender of truth, justice, and 
the Dunwynian way, with Tummi as his 
sidekick, Pronto. His biggest challenge: 
a trio of robbers who frame him, Cavin 
and Calla. Cameo appearance of the 
poacher from “Loopy, Go Home.” 

18a. A Hard Dazed Knight teleplay 
by Jim Pasternak**** 

Gruffi dons a suit of mechanical 
armor to battle an army of ogres so Calla 
canrescue her father from Igthom’s spell. 

18b. Do Unto Ogres teleplay by 
Mark Zaslove** 

Toadie inadvertantly drinks an ex¬ 
perimental growth potion and attacks 
Castle Drekmore as a giant. The only one 
who can stop him — is Sunni! 


19. For Whom the Spell Holds 
teleplay by Len Uhley.**** 

Zorlock the wizard, magically im- 
prisoned underground, sends a Grot-crea- 
ture to steal the Great Book of Gummi to 
counteract the spell that binds him, and 
begin a campaign of world conquest. 

20a. Little Bears Lost teleplay by 
Mark Zaslove.** 

A thief lurks in Gummi Glen. Zummi 
and Grammi try to find him, even though 
they’re an inch small. 

20b. Guess Who’s Gumming to 
Dinner? teleplay by Bruce Talkington* 

Sunni wants to impress Calla with a 
feast, but her plans don’t go smoothly 
when the Bears behave strangely. 

21. My Gummi Lies Over the 
Océan teleplay by Doug Hutchinson, 
JymnMagon,Bruce Talkington and Mark 
Zaslove. **** 

When Gruffi and Tummi are stranded 
on an island, they discover the island is 
sinking, and its volcano is about to erupt. 
Introducing Gusto Gummi and ArtieDeco. 


Third Season (1987-1988) 


Producers: Tad Stones, Alan Zas¬ 
love 

Associate Producer: Tom Ruzicka 
Director: Alan Zaslove 
S tory Editors: Jymn Magon (épi¬ 
sodes 22a, 22b, 24a, 24b), Tad Stones 
Storyboard Directors: Thom Enri- 
quez, Hank Tucker, Rob La Duca, 

Steve Gordon 

Overseas Animation Supervisor: 
Russell Mooney 

Key Layout Design: Ed Wexler 
Key Background Stylist: Gary 
Eggleston 

Color Key Stylist: Janet Cummings 
Assistant Producer: Randy Chaffee 
Timing Directors: Dave Brain, Jamie 
Mitchell, Bob Zamboni 

Production Manager: Olivia Miner 
Art Coordinator: Krista Bunn 
Production Assistants: Barbara 
Brysman, Luanne Wood 

Managing Editor: Rich Harrison 
Supervising Editor: Robert S. 
Birchard 

Sound Editors: Mark Orfanos, Karen 
Doulac 

Assistant Editors: Rick Hinson, 
Glenn Lewis 

Animation production by TMS En¬ 


tertainment, Inc. 

Cast: 

Corey Burton: Gruffi Gummi, 
Toadie, Gigglin 

Brian Cummings: Chillbeard Sr., 
Knight of Gummadoon 

David Faustino: Knight of Gumma¬ 
doon 

J une Foray: Grammi Gummi, Coun- 
cillor Woodale, Mobile Tree, Girl 

Katie Leigh: Sunni Gummi, Mobile 

Tree 

Howard Morris: Sir Ponch 
Tress MacNeille: Marsipan, Great 
Oak, Mother 

Chuck McCann: Tadpole, Sir 
Tuxford 

Lorenzo Music: Tummi Gummi 
Noelle North: Cubbi Gummi, Prin- 
cess Calla, Mobile Tree 

Alan Oppenheimer: Knight of Gum¬ 
madoon 

Pat Parris: Aquarianne 
Rob Paulsen: Augustus “Gusto” 
Gummi 

Will Ryan: Gad, Zook, Ogres, Knight 
Michael Rye: King Gregor, Duke 
Igthom, Malsinger, Horse, Troll 

Frank Welker: Ditto, Chillbeard Jr., 
Mervyns, Mother Griffin 

Paul Winchell: Zummi Gummi, 
Clutch, Tuck 

22a. Too Many Cooks by Bruce 
Talkington **\fl 

Sir Ponch, the Impérial Taffy Maker 
cornes to Dunwyn to make his last batch 
of irresistable taffy. Tummi, Sunni and 
Cubbi hide in the kitchen to copy his 
secret recipe and make a batch for them- 
selves, but they’re caught by King Gre¬ 
gor. 

22b. Just a Tad Smarter by Bruce 
Talkington.** 1/2 

The Gummies team up with Duke 
Igthom after Toadie’s cousin Tadpole 
rallies the ogres against the Duke and 
orders them to destroy ail the Gummiberry 
bushes. 

23a. If I Were You story by Tad 
Stones & Richard Mueller; teleplay by 
Richard Mueller*** 

Igthom uses Mal singer the wizard’s 
Star of Lakloon to switch bodies with 
Tummi and leam the Gummies* secrets. 
Once in Gummi Glen, the Bears surprise 
him with a birthday party, where he suf- 
fers from Zummi*s fireworks and 
Grammi’s marplenut cookies. 


40 Animato! 







23b. Eye of the Beholder by Mark 
Zaslove.**** 

Marzipan, a duchess who is marry- 
ing King Gregor, is really a witch who 
has put Dunwyn under her spell. Only 
Sunni knows Marsipan’s secret, but a 
bewitched Calla won’t let Sunni expose 
her. 

24a. Presto Gummo by Bruce Reid 
Schaefer and Tad Stones.** 

When Tummi makes a wooden 
Gummi medallion to practice magic, 
Cubbi rigs up some tricks to make Tummi 
think the medallion really works. Con- 
vinced he’s a wizard, Tummi takes on the 
ogres. 

24b. A Tree Grows in Dunwyn by 
Mark Zaslove ***** 

The trolls from “Over the River and 
Through the Trolls” tunnel out of Gre¬ 
gor’s dungeon and seek the apple tree 
where they’ve hidden their stolen gold. 
But Calla and the Gummies hâve taken it 
to the castle as a présent for King Gregor 
onMonarch’sDay. The Trolls follow the 
Gummies to their home and hold them 
hostage until they retrieve the gold. 

25. Day of the Beevilweevils story 
by MarkZaslove; teleplay by Bruce Talk¬ 
ington.**** 

When a swarm of beevilweevils dev- 
astate the Gummiberry bushes, Gusto 
and Tummi take a long-range quick car to 
get some replacement bushes from South 
GumptonatFangwoodForest, but they’re 
captured by talking mobile trees. 

26a. Water Way to Go story by 
MarkZaslove & Tad Stones; teleplay by 
Bruce Reid Schaefer ***** 

Gusto wants to sketch Aquarianne, a 
mermaid whose monstrous pet Finwhip- 
pit cornes to her aid whenever she blows 
her conch shell whistle. Igthom captures 
her and uses the whistle to get the sea 
monster to attack Castle Dunwyn. 

26b. Boggling the Bears by Tad 
Stones** 

Sunni makes friends with Ditto, a 
shape-changing Boggie on the run from a 
hungry wolf. Ditto calls his fellow 
Boggies inside Gummi Glen, where their 
shape-changing antics “boggie” the 
Bears. 

27a*, Close Encounters of the 
Gummi Kind story by Bruce Talkington 
& Tad Stones; teleplay by Bruce Reid 
Schaefer. ***1/2 

Gusto builds a wind-up Gummi Bear 


decoy that instead draws the attention of 
Igthom and the ogres, some woodcutters, 
and Sir Tuxford and his knights. Their 
search for the decoy leads the to Gummi 
Glen. 

27b. Snows Your Old Man story by 
Tad Stones & Ted Perry; teleplay by 
Bruce Talkington*** 

Tummi, Sunni and Cubbi discover 
the reason for an unusually-long winter in 
Dunwyn: aNorsefrostgiantnamed Chili - 
beard wants it to stay cold. 

28a. Mirthy Me by Bruce Reid 
Schaefer* 

A sprite called a gigglin encourages 
the Gummies to play practical jokes on 
each other until they nearly destroy 
Gummi Glen. 

28b. Gummi Dearest by Bruce Talk¬ 
ington** 


Cubbi fishes at Grimtooth Islet, the 
nesting grounds for gryphons. When a 
mervyn (baby gryphon) hatches, Gruffi 
has to retum it to its mother, who thinks 
Cubbi is her child. 

29. The Knights of Gummadoon 
story by Bruce Talkington andTad Stones; 
teleplay by Tad Stones.**** 

The Gummi Bears discover the City 
of Gummadoon, which appears for one 
day every hundred years. The ancient 
Gummies who live there distrust humans, 
and they put Cavin in their dungeon. 
When Cubbi tries to free Cavin, he is 
branded a traitor and has to endure a trial 
by combat against Sir Plucki, the greatest 
Knight of Gummadoon. Meanwhile, 
Duke Igthom attacks Gummadoon with 
an army of ogres — with their strength 
increased by Gummiberry juice! 



Animato! 41 























RABBITS, RHYTHM AND RHAPSODY: 

Bugs on Broadway! 


By Thomas M. Shim 

Late last September, whilst lazily 
brushing my teeth one early moming, 
hoping my carpool wouldn’t be on time 
(not unlikely), a strange thing happened 
as I fmished up my daily dose of Deborah 
Norville on the “Today” show. Thephe- 
nomenon that fol- 
lowed, the image that 
flickered before me 
that fateful day, was 
so novel, so esoteric, 
so eclectically per¬ 
verse, I had to literally 
wipe my eyes a couple 
of times to be con- 
vinced this was real, 
had to remind myself 
I had toothpaste in my 
mouth before I could 

gag. 

Three words was 
ail it took. “Bugs 
Bunny on Broad¬ 
way!” a voice some- 
where seemed to 
cheer. 

It was as if 
Heaven herself had 
woken up that moment 
and said, “Eh, let’s 
give the guy a break.” 

And thus did I 
find out about this 
mega-spectacular that 
was to fill the 2,000- 
seat Gershwin for the 
first two weeks in Oc- 
tober. Yes, you heard 
it right the first time: 

Bugs Bunny on Broadway . As I sat there, 
mesmerized that such a thing could even 
be possible, the details began to seep in: 
“Your favorite animated shorts! Shown 
live, on the big screen! The way they 
were meant to be seen! And accompa- 
nied by”—and this was the clincher— 
”the65-pieceWarner Bros. Orchestra!” I 
started to feel faint (it was probably the 
toothpaste), but steadied myself long 
enough to hear the phone number, and 
commit ittomemory. “CelebrateBugs’s 


50th Anniversary in a grand way! Pre- 
views October 3rd; opening performance, 
October 4th! Don’t miss it!” Were they 
kidding? 

The loud hom from the car outside— 
ithadbeenblasting about ten times now— 
frnally rattled me from my daze. 


Unbelievably, ithadn’tbeenadream. 
The tickets came from Teletron the next 
week; I’d ordered three for me and two 
(ahem) highly intelligent friends. When 
the day of the première came, I got the 
tickets out of the safe deposit box the 
moming before (I*m kidding!), and 
guarded them like the gold they were to 
me.... Okay, so I dumped them into my 
bag. I was still excited beyond belief: I 
mean, this was real! 

After school, I met Kim (a guy) and 


Chris (she’s a girl) at the 7th Ave. subway 
station on 5 lst St. at around 6:15, two 
hours before showtime. They were about 
as hyped as I was, and we pretty much 
raced to the theatre as fast as we could 
when—boom!—we ran right into a wall 
of people. Frankly, we had chosen the 
opening because, 
fans though we were, 
we didn’t think the 
show would last even 
the two weeks. 

Granted, Bugs 
Bunny’s good, but 
Andrew Lloyd 
Webber he ain’t. Yet 
here, right before our 
eyes (and feet) was a 
promis ing sign, to say 
the least: a literal 
throng of tickethold- 
ers, not one of them 
below their twenties 
mind you, waiting on 
a line two blocks 
long, and wide, to get 
into what our naive 
little trio had consid- 
ered an obscure, on- 
the-fringe venture. 

We’d leamed 
our lesson, just like 
Elmer and Yosemite 
before us. Never 
underestimate the 
Rabbit. 

It took us almost 
fifteen minutes just to 
get through the front 
gates, but the reviews 
and posters outside kept us occupied. 
Meet Me in St. Louis had closed, and 
Fiddler on the Roof was opening in No- 
vember, meanwhile, Bugs, in conductor 
garb, was leading us on our merry way. 
Glowing columns from the News, the 
Post , Newsday , even the Times had ail 
been blown up and posted, hawking the 
fun promised inside. 

If you’ve never been in the Gersh¬ 
win, it’s plain beautiful— everything from 
the hanging chandeliers and double spi- 



P m CED PREVIEW TO 
OPENS TOM 
ONLY 7 PER 


Your all-time 
favorite 
Bugs Bunny” 
Shorts on the 
Big Screen. 



IGHT8PM ALL $*Y TS 
ROW 6:30 
U THIS SUN. 

Accompanied 
LIVE on stage 
by the full 
WARNER BROS. 
SYMPHONY 
ORCHESTRA 
conducted by 
George Daugherty 


Thurs.. Oct 4 a 6:30 PM; Fri.. Oct 5 at 8PM; Sat. Ocl 6 a 3:30 i 8PM; Sun.. Oct 7 a 3PM: $35.25 
Spécial Sat Matinée. 0a 6 atl 2 Noon: Alt St*» $25 


CALL J3EJ TICKETRON NOW (212) 246-0102 
GERSHWIN THEATRE 51* Street,West of Broadway 


TM 1 © Warrwr Bros. Inc. 


42 Animato! 



















rai stairways, down to the plush hallways 
and illustrated, tapestried walls. There 
was something of a makeshift souvenir 
stand on the top floor, and we fought with 
other patrons to grab our share of caps, T- 
shirts, and posters. At the aisle entrance, 
we were each given a copy of the night’s 
“Playbill.” (Bugs Bunny on the cover of 
a “Playbill”?—I couldn’t stand it.) On 
entering the stage proper, we were hit 
square in the eyes by the immensity of not 
only the arena, but the crowd. 

“Man...the Bugster’s really hit the 
big time at last,” Kim managed to blurt 
out for ail of us. (Hey, no more Mickey 
Mouse jokes for this lapine jester.) 

An usher led us to our seats (seventh 
row, orchestra!), and we pretty much sat 
on our hands waiting for the show to start. 
Most of the audience were in suits and 
ties or in dresses, what with tonight being 
the opening and ail. The few children 
there seemed to be on surprisingly good 
behavior. And the whole place was abuzz 
in dizzy anticipation; clearly this was a 
partisan crowd. 

After a pensive five-minute de- 
lay, the lights finally dimmed to the clamor 
of applause. The din only grew louder as 
the curtain rose to reveal the ad hoc 
Warner Bros. Orchestra in its full splen- 
dor— wiping out any lingering doubts 
that this was not some grand practical 
joke. 

Out from stage left stepped our host 
for the evening. George Daughterty, a 
young guy that looked congenial enough, 
decked out in an impressive outfit befit- 
ting a tested conductor. He took his place 
on the podium, raised his bâton high, and 
out of this highly trained, utterly profes- 
sional 65-piece philharmonie arose... the 
wild and wacky Merrie Mélodies theme. 

It was sheer music to our ears. And 
as good as the rest of the program was— 
and it was very, very good—nothing could 
quite match that first rush experienced by 
hearing this: a song we’d ail heard be- 
fore, hundreds of times on télévision, 
leading off every other Warner Bros, car- 
toon, ever since we as babes were first 
plopped down in front of the set by busy 
and frustrated parents who just wanted us 
to, for Gpd’s sake, shut up! for a while. 
And we shut up, and watched...and were 
hooked. 

Only this time, we were hearing this 
“throwaway tune” alongside thousands 
of people, who’d paid for the privilège. 


conducted and performed by the best— 
live. It was simply unbelievable. 

But the rest of the show was stupen- 
dous, too, don’t let me mislead you. 
Shown were such classic shorts as Chuck 
Jones ’s paean comoedia to Rossini, “Rab- 
bit of Seville” (1950), where Bugs gives 
Elmer a shave he’ll never forget. Also 
screened was Bob Clampett’s vicous 
parody of Disney’s Fantasia, “A Comy 
Concerto” (1944), which introduced 
countless kids to Strauss’s The Elue 
Danube (remember “da-da-da-da- 
dum...quack-quack, quack-quack”?). 

These were mixed with such lesser- 
known pleasures as Jones’s “High Note” 
(1960), where little musical notes get 
drunk with friendly treble clefs, and Rob¬ 
ert McKimson’s “What’s Up, Doc?” 
(1951), in which Bugs tell how it ail 
started. 

In two more Jones-directed musi- 
cals. Bugs actually got to conduct the 
orchestra from his own podium in “Bâton 
Bunny” ( 1959); while as Léopold Stokow- 
ski, he successfully tortured a pompous 
opéra singer in “Long-Haired Hare” 
(1949). Friz Freleng’s “Rhapsody Rab- 
bit” (1946)—featuring Liszt’s 2nd Hun- 
garian Rhapsody —got two of the biggest 
laughs of the evening; first, when Bugs 
rids himself of a coughing member of the 
audience—by grabbing a g un and shoot- 
ing him, dead; and second, when a phone 
rings from inside the piano Bugs is play- 
ing. Bugs answers it: “Who? Franz 
Liszt? Nah, never hoid of ‘im.” 

Each and every one of these cultural 
paradigms of mid-20th-century Ameri- 
cana was proudly projected on the three- 
story-high screen on-stage, finally freed 
of y ears of confinement to the small 
tube—each classic bigger-than-life, pre- 
sented as they were always meant to be. 
And adoming each of these paragons of 
the Golden Age of Hollywood animation 
was the lush musical accompaniment of 
this Warner Bros. Orchestra, filling out 
every individual score with a richness 
perceivable only through a live perform¬ 
ance. 

Interspersed throughout the evening 
were straight-arrow performances by 
Daugherty and the orchestra of the origi¬ 
nal classical pièces that inspired the mu¬ 
sic of the cartoons. Wagner’s Ride of the 
Valkyries and Von Suppe’s Morning, 
Noon, and Night in Vienna were among 
the selctions, as were Rossini *s The Bar- 


ber of Sévi lie, Strauss’s Taies of the Vi¬ 
enna Woods , and LizsïsHungarianRhap- 
sody,No.2. Although competently done 
and pleasant enough, these interludes 
were nonetheless slow and tedious, and 
clashed unfortunately with their visual 
counterparts. But at their best, these 
intervals did serve as something of a 
geenerous respire from ail that tiring ac¬ 
tion. 

The climax of the evening, however, 
was not to be denied. When the conduc¬ 
tor lifted his bâton for the last time, the 
screen lit up with one of the most cher- 
ished titles in Warner cartoon-dom: 
ChuckJones’s 1957masterpiece,“What’s 
Opéra, Doc?” The cheers and applause 
reached an all-night high as the crédits 
flashed over the strains of vintage Wag¬ 
ner. Unbridled laughter gave way to 
sheer awe, as before our eyes unfolded 
(once again) Jones’s six-minute conden¬ 
sation of Wagner’s infamous 36-hour Ring 
Cycle. Impressive and daunting in and of 
itself, the film’s re-projection and re- 
scoring to even more magnificent pro¬ 
portions caused ail senses of the audience 
tobeboggledbeyond récognition. When 
the expérience eventually came to its 
inévitable but undesired close, the ex- . 
hausted crowd could only applaud—long 
and long—with the reverence due such a 



Animato! 43 



priceless work of art. 

The show*s run, by the way, was 
highly successful. The initial two-week 
stay, about whose length we had origi- 
nally so much doubt, sold out before the 
weekend. The two-week extension was 
also sold out within the week tickets were 
put on sale. The only limit preventing 
still further shows was the commitment 
of the Gershwin to the producers of the 
forthcoming Fiddler on the Roof ...not to 
mention the obligations of Bugs on Broad¬ 
way to its nationwide tour. 

As if to prognosticate these events, 
the evening at-hand had been a resound- 
ing succcess in its own right. But when ail 
seemed said and done, one more surprise 
was in store. The talented artists respon- 
sible for these comic classics were paid 
their just due in a brief monologue by 
conductor Daughtery: 

Cari Stalling, and his orchestrator 
Milt Franklyn, who together and in tan¬ 
dem created the remarkable music recog- 
nized instantly as “the Warner Bros. 
Sound.”; 

Treg Brown, creator of the famous 
“whoop,” “ffweep,” and “yuggity-yug- 
gity-yuggity,” who for over 25 years 


single-handedly commandeered the 
sound effects department at Warner Bros; 

The indomitable Mel Blanc, whose 
mammoth vocal talents breathed life into 
virtually ail the Warner Bros, characters 
for half-a- century; 

Storymen Michael Maltese, Warren 
Foster, and Tedd Pierce, who with wits as 
keen as daggers, kept the puns and gags 
coming without ever missing a beat; 

And of course, the directors. From 
vaudevillian Friz Freleng to intellectual 
Chuck Jones; from wildman Bob Clam- 
pett to sho wman Robert McKimson; from 
sex-crazed Frank Tashlin to con artist 
Arthur Davis. And of course, the little 
guy who started it ail by going out and 
creating the little grey hare in the first 
place: TexAvery. With their respective 
animators, layout men, and background 
artists, they contributed their lives to do- 
ing one thing, and doing it ail the best 
damnedest way possible: making people 
laugh. 

Each artisan mentioned was a genu- 
ine master of his own craft, and contrib¬ 
uted his own spécial talent to the making 
of these exemplars of animation. They 
were ail clearly the best in the business. 


certainly the best at what they did so well. 

Together they created a synergy the 
likes of which, sadly but wonderously, 
will never be witnessed again. 

But then came the surprise. Intro- 
duced in front of our very >eyes were 
Charles M. “Chuck” Jones and Isadore 
“Friz” Freleng, two of the creators of 
these forty-year-old masterpieces known 
as the Warner Bros, animated cartoons. 
Sitting right there in the third row, a mere 
twenty feet away from our trio, were two 
living monuments responsible for so 
much joy and laughter in the lives of 
millions of people worldwide. 

The two elderly gentlemen humbly 
stood up to acknowledge the cheering 
throngs. Who could hâve imagined such 
a day would corne when, after a half- 
century of neglect, scom, ridicule, and 
criticism, their Herculean efforts as a 
legitimate artform would finally be rec- 
ognized, and exalted? It was clear to see 
they were moved beyond belief, and we 
were too. 

As the artists waved happily to their 
loving fans, a standing ovation—whose 
amplitude and length were immeasurable 
continued into the night. 



LYNNE NOVICK 

a 


« Walt Disney Company 
Slxxwn: Detail crf Drcrwing 



® Walt Disney Company 
Sho«Mn: Detail of Dravring 


«Watt Disney Company 
Shovwn: Detail of Drcrwtng 


Specializing in Fine Vintage Animation Art 

Please call or write for our free catalog 
919 Wabash Avenue, Linwood, NJ 08221 

( 609 ) 653 0770 


44 Animato! 


























Book Review 

Emile Cohl: From Success to the Poor House 



by Shamus Culhane 

Emile Cohl; Caricature and film. 
Donald Crafton, 375 pp. 321 illustra¬ 
tions, Princeton University Press. 

Donald Crafton put ten years of 
his life into a blockbuster of a biogra- 
phy of Emile Cohl, who has been 
called “The Father of Animation.” The 
resuit was a book with meticulously 
detailed research. Crafton did not 
zéro in on Cohl, but enriched his back- 
ground by writing about the intellec- 
tual climate of a particular time, and 
adds information about Cohl’s peers 
and their individual accomplishments 
in such a fashion as to give the reader 
a vivid picture of Cohl as a living, 
breathing person, working in an espe- 
cially exciting time. 

His writing style is a welcome 
relief from the circusposter style of 
some of our contemporary film histo- 
rians who hâve managed to get pub- 
lished, and film theorists, whose pon- 
derous writing styles obscure the origi¬ 
nal thoughts (if there were any). 

Keeping track of Emile Cohl’s 
checkered career, and the details of 
Parisian fm-de-siecle artistic and in- 
tellectual life, the deeds of various 
people who impinged on Cohl *s life, their 
accomplishments, as opposed to his ef¬ 
forts, ail this makes for a difficult book to 
absorb. It is not a coffee-table tome for 
scanning while the wife gets ready for a 
night on the town. 

Crafton portrays Cohl as a timid 
person in his human relationships, yet 
very aggressive when driven by sheer 
curiousity. When aroused by his brows- 
ing, he seems capable of prodigious ef¬ 
fort, with little regard for the end resuit. 
In a way this was a Godsend because it 
led Cohl to two major careers. 

One, as a political caricaturist, then, 
at the nadir of that career, when most 
artists would hâve faded into obscurity, 
Cohl became interested in photography, 
bofh still and motion picture. When his 
venture in still portraits proved so unprof- 
itable that he could not maintain his own 
household, he went on to fmd a job as a 
script writer at Gaumount, a leading 


French production company that was 
chuming out pictures for the burgeoning 
crop of motion picture theaters which 
were springing up like mushrooms, not 
only in France, but ail over the world. 

Later he became a director, first do? 
ing “trick” films, using the stop-motion 
of objects, then tenatively exploring the 
animation of drawings. From the first 
screening, this facet of his art was a 
success. Ironically enough, most of his 
pictures were made to advertise various 
products or companies, very similar to 
our TV commercials. 

The quality of his films was so great 
that Cohl was invited to join a production 
house, Eclair, inFort Lee, NJ. Hisenthu- 
siasm quickly cooled when he realized 
the full intensity of the hostility of Tho¬ 
mas Edison and a group of his unsavoury 
cronies. Their aim was to establish a 
monopoly of the motion picture business, 
even to the extern of trying to get législa¬ 


tion preventing foreigners from work¬ 
ing on American films in any capac- 
ity. 

Edison’s chicanery failed, and 
Cohl worked ten years at Eclair. 
Shortly before he retumed to France, 
he became associated with George 
McManus, who was famous as the 
creator of a comic-strip, “The Newly- 
weds.” While the animated cartoons 
were successful, most of the kudos 
seemd to hâve gone to McManus. 

Crafton then recounts, with obvi- 
ous sympathy, how Cohl left Eclair, 
and went back to France because of 
sickness in the family, only to be con- 
fronted by World War One. 

During the war, and later, in his 
old âge, Cohl gradually was unable to 
fmd work, and became destitute. Then 
followed a period in the 1930’s when 
he began to be recognized as a key 
figure in French art history. In 1936 
the Société d’Encouragement pour 
l’Industrie National awarded Cohl 
4,000 francs and a medal. 

It was said when Emile Cohl be¬ 
came inactive in the animation field, 
the American animators took over and 
obliterated the French animators. 
People preferred to see Flip the Frog, 
Koko the Clown, Félix the Cat, and above 
ail, Mickey Mouse. 

The reader will be moved by 
Crafton’s version of Cohl’s misérable 
end. The 4,000 franc award was soon 
dissipated in payment for hospital ex- 
penses which Cohl incurred because of 
an accident in which he suffered severe 
and extensive bums. 

Crafton writes about Cohl’s declin- 
ing years with great compassion, as he 
acts out the old maxim that inventors and 
creators die poor. 

The author has succeeded in writing 
an enormously important biography about 
Cohl, not only as a pioneer film-maker, 
but also as a human being. 

The notes in the back of the book are 
copious, chronological, and detailed. 
Altogether Mr. Crafton has succeeded in 
accomplishing a superior piece of schol- 
arship. 


Animato! 45 




Animation in Academia: 

How one English teacher Uses Cartoons as a Teaching Aid! 


byTim Smith 

I remembered being six years old 
and knowing no greater pleasure in life 
than the sight of Yogi Bear trying to 
twinkletoe past Ranger Smith’s cabin in 
just one more ill-fated attempt to escape 
the confines of Jellystone Park. Itwasn’t 
until recent years, when I became an 
educated animation aficionado, that I re- 
alized it wasn’t respectable to like Hanna- 
Barbera. Qf course I was 
ashamed, but I decided to 
branch out. 

My passion for the ani- 
mated cartoon now embraces 
toons ranging from Gertie the 
Dinosaur to the as-yet-uncon- 
ceived future offspring of Bart 
Simpson but, scom me if you 
must, I still include Huckle- 
berry Hound and Snagglepuss 
among my favorites. 

Of course, being a high 
school English teacher, I hâve 
a built in rationalization for 
Snagglepuss. In my line, the 
ability to spout Shakespeare 
assures instant credibility for 
anyone, but even the enlight- 
ened mind of Shakespeare 
probably would hâve 
struggled with the possibility 
that the diverse spectrum of 
actors who would give voice 
to his words for future généra¬ 
tions might include a moun¬ 
tain lion. “Great Caesar’s 
Ghost!” and “Heavens to 
Murgatroyd!” 

Therelationshipbetween 
animation and the English lan- 
guage is one to which I hâve devoted 
untold hours over the past five years. It 
was about that long ago that a bizarre idea 
first occurred to me. As I immersed 
myself in the work of artistic geniuses 
such as Avery, Jones, and Freleng, I be- 
gan to appreciate their exemplary use of 
many of the literary concepts I hâve been 
charged with teaching mystudents. Con¬ 
cepts such as irony, pun, caricature, and 
parody are conveyed as effectively 
through animation as through any written 


medium. 

Most kids love cartoons. I love 
cartoons. I’ve accumulated thousands of 
them. The combinations of ail those 
factors fanned within me the fire of a 
buming question. Could animation be 
used in an effective and comprehensive 
approach to teaching high school Eng¬ 
lish? Or would the mere suggestion of 
such an idea inevitably lead to the drop- 



ping of the administrative anvil squarely 
upon my figurative head? 

The amount of time and effort in- 
vested in the project between conception 
and execution was considérable. During 
the first few years after the idea* s incep- 
tion there was an additional purpose cir- 
culating in my mind during every cartoon 
Iwatched. I started an extensive index 
card file where I carefully cataloged my 
notes and observations regarding what 
animated material might most effectively 


be used to illustrate and teach the con¬ 
cepts I wanted my students to leam. 

As fate would hâve it, the point in 
time where I felt the animation concept 
was ready for implémentation happened 
to coincide with some major philosophi- 
cal changes in the teaching of language 
arts. 

Over the last few years we hâve seen 
a shift in focus from a teacher centered 
classroom to a student cen¬ 
tered classroom. My rôle 
has become less that of an 
instructor and more that of 
a facilitator. 

Four basic areas of lan¬ 
guage arts skills, namely 
reading, writing, listening, 
and speaking, hâve emerged 
as the primary objectives 
around which student ac- 
tivities are planned. There 
is more of an emphasis on 
skills and techcniques than 
there is on spécifie subject 
matter and that change 
opened some doors of op- 
portunity regarding how I 
could use animation as a 
means for providing my stu¬ 
dents with meaningful and 
engaging opportunities to 
refîne their skills. 

As I hâve developed 
and adapted my concept I 
hâve been able to increas- 
ingly demonstrate the suc- 
cessful use of animation as 
a topic around which effec¬ 
tive activités can be devel¬ 
oped to provide worthwhile 
and enjoyableopportunities toread, write, 
listen, and speak, and I’ve enjoyed a 
positive response from students, parents, 
colleagues, and administrators. 

The most rewarding and successful 
educational environment is one where 
students are enjoying what they’re doing 
and actively applying themselves at the 
same time. Allow me to illustrate an 
example of this with a recent class proj¬ 
ect, this one based on the innovative work 
of the Fleischer brothers and their studio 


46 Animato! 



whichflourished during the 20's and 30’s 
before being crushed by Paramount’s 
corporate sledge hammer in 1942. 

One student had planned a class pré¬ 
sentation which dealt with the évolution 
of the chracter of Betty Boop. He started 
with her origins as Bimbo the dog’s 
poodle-girlfriend, discussed the metamor- 
phosis to a totally human sex-pot, and 
finished with the conservative changes 
forced upon poor Betty by the Hays Pro¬ 
duction Code of 1934 when she was 
stripped of her sexuality and forced to 
exchange her garter for an apron. 

This student then espoused the the- 
ory that of ail the characters in the Fleis- 
cher stable, none was ever subjected to a 
more devastating plight than Bimbo. 
True, he said, Popeye was often forced to 
undergo the most thorough of trouncings 
before resorting to his spinach solution. 
And Superman had to endure the terror of 
having his secret love suffer tortures rang- 
ing from railroad track tie-downs to for- 
eign agent abductions. And al as poor 
Koko the Clown, no claustrophobie he, 
was forced to live inside an inkwell. How- 
ever, none of these ignominious fates 
could possibly compare to that of Bimbo 
who had to endure the traumatic shock of 
seeing his spouse gradually change spe- 
cies before his very eyes. Man*s best 
friend indeed! It was one of those sad- 
but-true taies that, within the realm of the 
animated world, is allowed to become 
sad, true, and funny. 

At that point the student embarked 
upon a sériés of rhetorical questions which 
played upon the analogy he had created. 
“Think of the implications,” he queried 
his classmates, “that such an occurrence 
mighthaveonyou. Imagine for a minute 
that your boyfriend or girlfriend actually 
changed into a dog. Girls, how might his 
affect your prom plans? How do you 
explain to your family that your boy¬ 
friend doesn’t think drinking out of the 
toiletisnecessarily a^adthing’? Guys, 
what do you say to your friends when 
they ask why your date always rides with 
her head outside thet window?” 

And from there the student went into 
a monologue of dilemmas directed at 
bothsexes. Allow me to share a sampling 
of some of the better ones. The girls were 
faced with tough questions like, “How 
would your girlfriends react to the fact 
that you were seeing a dog? How would 


you react to their consistent complaints 
that he was taking advantage of his new 
four-legged stature to look up their 
dresses? Would his persistent habit of 
lurking around the bio lab during cat 
dissections threaten your relationship? 
Will your most romande moments be 
compromised by the fact there he can no 
longer sweat and must rely upon panting 
for relief of excess body heat?” 

And for the guys, “Would the an- 
noying staccato click of métal on marble 
as you walk down the hall eventually 
cause you to demand she wear your class 
ring on a Chain around her neck rather 
than on her paw? Suppose an impulsive 
canine urge to chew renders her straw 
inopérable, and she is forced to lap up her 
lunch milk in a manner your friends con- 
sider to be sexually suggesüve. Would 
this, to you, be a source of pride or humili¬ 
ation?” Ail are certainly questions ca¬ 
pable of boggling any teenage mind. 

Although this is just one of the sev- 
eral mémorable instances of vibrant inter¬ 
actions between my students and anima¬ 
tion that I hâve witnessed, I think it pro¬ 
vides an excellent example of how the 
genre has the potential to spark student 
interest and creativity. 

In my professional analysis of the 
aforementioned Fleischer présentation I 
felt the student had been successful on 
three very distinct levels. Given the évo¬ 
lution of Betty Boop as a topic, he had 

Computer Graphics 

Miniatures 

Drafting 


been charged with effectively conveying 
said topic to his classmates. Having dealt 
thoroughly with the original task, he pro- 
ceeded along an analytical path to use the 
content of his topic, along with supple- 
mentary information on the other Fleis¬ 
cher charcters, to develop a pertinent, 
interesting, and amusing new theory. 
Then finally, the student took the project 
down a wholly Creative path, and com- 
posed a humorous and satirical mono¬ 
logue, drawing upon both the concept of 
a human-dog relationship and the high 
school expérience which he shared with 
his audience. 

The third level of the student’s work, 
while originally springing from a concept 
based in animation, is actually not an- 
imiation spécifie at ail. The satire works 
on its own level. It could be appreciated 
by an audeince that had never even heard 
of Betty Boop. 

And therein lies the greated poten¬ 
tial of animation in éducation. In addition 
to the “history of animation” knowledge 
my students are acquiring, both directly 
and indirectly, the timeless fascination 
which animation inspires in so many of 
us is serving as a catalyst to motivate and 
inspire them to more actively engage 
themsel ves in the developement of a broad 
spectrum of academie and personal skills. 
Hopefully every one of my students leaves 
the class feeling smarter than the average 
bear! 


Technical Illustration • Design 
Lettering 
Layout 



FILM & VIDEO GRAPHICS 1313 ) 382-4761 

Animato! 47 


x 










Just in the Nick ofTime: 

A review of the new Nick at Nite Toons 


By Harry McCracken 

When I heard that Nickelodeon was 
planning a block of original animated 
programs for Sunday momings, I wasn’t 
sure what to expect. While any network 
that dares to run black-and-white Bosko 
cartoons in prime-time is OK by me, most 
of Nick* s animated programming—like 
its reruns of Heathcliff and Inspector 
Gadget — has been nothing to get ex- 
cited about. In addition, much of the 
network’s live-action programming has a 
phony tone of forced irreverence that’s 
kind of wearying, at least if you*re over 
the âge of twelve. 

Nick’s three new cartoon shows 
seem to be suffering some production 
problems—each show has aired at least 
one repeat, four weeks into the season— 
but otherwise they’re off to a promising 
start. Doug, Rugrats, and The Ren and 
Stimpy Show are ail worth watching, 
whether you’re a kid, a parent, or merely 
a fan of inventive animation. 

A Sunday moming spent watching 
Nickelodeon’s new cartoons begins with 
Doug, a program created by Jim Jinkins 
that’s the least unusual of the Nicktoons 
trio. Indeed, Doug is positively old- 
fashioned: it reminded me of an ani¬ 
mated Leave It To Beaver. 

Doug himself, midway between 
Wally and the Beav in âge, is a nice kid— 
unconfident and self-conscious, but al- 
ways well meaning. His supporting cast 
includes Roger, a leather-jacketed wis- 
eass (think Eddie Haskell); Skeeter, 
Doug’s best friend; and Patti Mayon¬ 
naise, a cute girl who Doug has a crush on 
(she seems to like him, too). Doug’s dog, 
Porkchop, is a wild, Snoopy-like créature 
who provides the major element of fan- 
tasy in this otherwise down-to-earth sub- 
urban setting. 

Doug’s adventures are the sort of 
things that happened to Beaver Cleaver, 
David and/or Ricky Nelson, and one or 
more members of the Brady Bunch: he 
thinks his nose is too big, his dog runs 
away, he builds a volcano for the science 
fair, he frets about making a fool of him¬ 
self at the school dance. Every story 


teaches Doug and the young viewer a 
gentle moral, usually having to do with 
Doug not being as unpopular, ugly, or 
incompetent as he sometimes thinks he 
is. 

Visually, Doug is an attractive, well- 
animated show with at least two curious 
aspects to it. The first one is instantly 


apparent: in Doug’s world, people corne 
in some mighty odd skin colors. Doug 
himself is a pretty ordinary caucasian 
shade of pink, but Patti Mayonnaise is 
bright orange, and Roger is a sort of 
fluorescent yellow. 

The other visual oddity is less obvi- 
ous: most of the time, the characters only 
hâve one eyebrow at a time. (Once in a 
while they hâve two; sometimes they 
hâve none.) It’s actually best to forget 
this fact, since once you catch on to it, 
watching Doug can quickly dissolve into 
staring at the characters* foreheads in 
order to see which eyebrow they hâve at 
any given time. 

Doug’s quirky graphie style seems 
to suggest a hipness that the characters 
and stories don’t deliver. That’s not a 
criticism — in fact, the best thing about 


Doug is that it’s so straightforward. It’s 
a nice show about a nice kid. Parents will 
probably find less to interest themselves 
here than in the other two Nicktoons, but 
I’U bet they’d rather their kids tried to 
emulate Doug than a Teenage Mutant 
Ninja Turtle or Bart Simpson. 

Speaking of Bart, the next show on 
the Nickelodeon schedule is Rugrats, a 
program produced by Klasky-Csupo, the 
studio responsible for The Simpsons. 
The central character is Tommy Pickles, 
an inquisitive baby boy (he célébrâtes his 
first birthday in one of the show’s épi¬ 
sodes). While Tommy can* t speak a word 
of English, he’s fluent in babytalk, with 
which he communicates with the several 
infants and small children who make up 
the Rugrats. 

They discuss issues that are of high 
importance if you ’re a baby—whether or 
not eating dog food will tum you into a 
dog, for instance. (The only way to find 
out for sure is to eat some, which they do.) 
In another story, the Rugrats get taken to 
a kiddie movie (a hilarious Care Bears 
parody), but escape in order to fmd the 
Godzilla-like créature that aTV commer¬ 
cial had told them was at the theater. 
Whatever the kids do, their yuppie par¬ 
ents are in the background, Consulting 
baby-raising manuals and happily oblivi- 
ous to the conversations and schemes of 
their little ones. 

If ail this sounds a little familiar, it 
may be because it bears some resem- 
blance to the Look Who’s Talking mov- 
ies — or perhaps you recall Sheldon 
Mayer*s Sugar and Spike comic books, 
which brilliantly explored the same basic 
conceit. Rugrats doesn’t make as much 
of the idea as Mayer did, but it’s at least 
as amusing as the average live-action 
sitcom. (The fine voice cast includes 
situation comedy vétérans like Jack Riley, 
Melanie Chartoff, and David Doyle.) 

The show’s visual style is recog- 
nizably that of the same people who pro- 
duce The Simpsons, but Rugrats has an 
intentionally rough-hewn, ungainly look 
that’s ail its own. This ugliness is some- 
how appealing in the case of the Rugrats 



48 Animato! 






themselves: they’re funny, unsentimen- contained stories, serialized adventures, 
tal caricatures of real children. Tommy *s bridging sequences, and animated 
parents, on the other hand, look like a pseudo-commercials, in the style of a 
husband-and-wife clown team—his dad 1960s Hanna-Barbera or Jay Ward pro- 
has violet hair and favors polka-dot ties; gram. Indeed, the whole show bears the 


his mother seems to 
share Bozo’s hair- 
dresser. 

If there’s a sig- 
nificant problem 
with Rugrats, it's 
that the show’s 
promising concept 
doesn’t seem com- 
pletely worked out. 

The baby’s-eye 
view of the world 
that gives the sériés 
itsbestmaterialisn’t 
explored enough; 
sometimes the per¬ 
spective is that of the 
parents, and some¬ 
times itdoesn 
to be any particular viewpoint at ail. 

In addition, the level of fantasy isn’t 
consistent. Somehow, the notion that 
Tommy and the other rugrats might com- 
municate in babybabbleis plausible; the 
idea of Tommy hiding a screwdriver in a 
spécial bracket on his highchair, the bet- 
ter to make his escapes with, is not. 

I don’t think it’s coincidental that 
The Ren and Stimpy Show is the final 
show in the Nicktoons moming. This is 
the program that late-sleeping adults — 
especially those who remember John 
Kricfalusi’s work on Mighty Mouse; 
The New Adventures—will want to 
check out. You thought the new 
Mighty Mouse was quirky? Ren and 
Stimpy, created and produced by 
Kricfalusi, makes Mighty Mouse look 
like Strawberry Short cake. 

The title characters hâve been 
aptly compared to a post-nuclear ho- 
locaustRockyandBullwinkle. Stimpy 
is an tubby, momie cat who talks with 
Larry Fine’s nasal voice, thanks to the 
uniquely talented voice artist Billy 
West; Ren, voicedby Kricfalusi, is an 
ugly, easily agitated Chihuahua. So 
far, therjç isn’t much a supporting cast, 
Stimpy’s “magic nose goblins” (don’t 
ask) excepted. 

While Doug and Rugrats stick 
to a two-stories-per-episode format, 
Ren and Stimpy is a mixture of self- 


same twisted symbiotic relationship to 
classic TV cartoon shows thateyberpunk 
bears to classic space-opera science fic¬ 
tion. The soundtrack seems to be drawn 
from cheap stock-music recordings of 
the 1960s; the backgrounds often look 
like they came directly from an early 
Yogi Bear cartoon. Sometimes, the 
show uses held drawings in a way that’s 
reminiscent of Crusader Rabbit and 
other very early TV cartoons. 

What makes the show more than a 
mere pastiche of old TV animation is the 
bizarre, uniquely 1990s spin that Kricfa¬ 


lusi and his artists give it. In one story, Ren 
becomés ill — grotesquely, visibly ill — 
and Stimpy attempts to nurse him back to 
health. The action is built around Ren’s 
expressions of excruciating pain, the spon- 
gebath Stimpy gives him when he be- 
comes “sticky with filth,” and other mate- 
rial that never would hâve made it into a 
1960s TV cartoon. 

Some of the show’s funniest moments 
are its fake 1960s animated TV commer- 
cials, including one for a toy called Log 
(“It’s big, it’s heavy, it’s wood!") and one 
in which Ren and Stimpy plug that break- 
fast favorite, Powdered Toast. One épi¬ 
sode shows us the hysterical opening créd¬ 
its for Stimpy’s favorite TV show, the 
ever-popular Muddy Mudskimmer show. 

Ren and Stimpy is the most sophis- 
ticated of the Nicktoons trio in many ways; 
it’s also the one that relies most heavily on 
cheerful gross-out humor. Rarely has wit 
based on cat litter and hairball references 
been so central to a TV program. After 
two épisodes it’s prématuré to say how 
limiting this will be; in any event, Kricfa¬ 
lusi’s work never bores, which is qui te an 
achievement in as predictable and un- 
imaginative a field as télévision anima¬ 
tion. 

It would be nice to wrap this review 
up with some sort of ranking of the three 
Nicktoons sériés, but that’s hard to do, 
since each is very much its own, distinc¬ 
tive création. Ail three programs are re- 
freshing antidotes to the merchandise-ori- 
ented shows that infest the broadeast net- 
works’ Saturday moming schedules. 


Animato! 49 

















ANIMATO FILM POLL 


Back by popular demand, here is the official Animato film poil. If your favorite films aren't represented here, perl^aps you 
should vote! 

Once again, please forgive us for not listing directors and for printing this in such a small typeface but that allows us to include 
as much of each list as possible. 

To cast your ballots or to update your old lists, send your top ten (in order) for each category to Animato , PO Box 1240, 
Cambridge, MA 02238. Remember that you can vote for films not on these lists - who knows, you may start a groundswell! 


THEATRICAL SHORTS 


1 . 

Duck Ainuck 

48. 

Gerald McBoingboing 

2. 

Little Rural Riding Hood 

49. 

Kitty Komered 

3. 

One Froggy Evening 

50. 

Alladin’s Lamp 

4. 

What's Opéra, Doc? 

51. 

Dizzy Red Riding Hood 

5. 

Duck Dodgers in the 

52. 

Rooty Toot Toot 


24 1/2 Century 

53. 

Scrappy’s Art Gallery 

6. 

The B and Concert 

54. 

Kami val Kid 

7. 

Duck! Rabbit! Duck! 

55. 

High Note 

8. 

Coal Black and De 

56. 

Apple Andy 


Sebben Dwarfs 

57. 

Lady Play Your Mandolin 

9. 

Rabbit of Sévi lie 

58. 

Feed the Kitty 

10. 

Bad Luck Blackie 

59. 

Let’s Celebrake 

11 . 

Snow White 

60. 

Mickey’s Fol lies 

12. 

Robin Hood Daffy 

61. 

Solid Serenade 

13. 

The Dover Boys 

62. 

Scrappy’s Télévision 

14. 

Popeye Meets S in bad 

63. 

Show Biz Bugs 

15. 

Tummy Trouble 

64. 

Barber of Seville 

16. 

The Great Piggy Bank 

65. 

Through the Mirror 


Robbery 

66. 

Happy-Go-Nutty 

17. 

Popeye Meets Ali Baba’s 

67. 

Three Little Pups 


40 Thieves 

68. 

How to Play Football 

18. 

King Size Canary 

69. 

The Screwy Truant 

19. 

Bimbo’s Initiation 

70. 

Sh-h-h-h 

20. 

Red Hot Riding Hood 

71. 

Bugs Bunny Rides Again 

21. 

The Old Mill 

72. 

Night Before Christmas 

22. 

Wabbit Twouble 

73. 

The Brave Tin Soldier 

23. 

Minnie the Moocher 

74. 

The Pointer 

23. 

Book Revue 

75. 

Betty Boop, MD 

24. 

Lucky Ducky 

76. 

In My Merry Oldsmobile 

25. 

Superman 

77. 

The Duxorcist 

26. 

Porky in Wackyland 

78. 

The Hep Cat 

27. 

Hareway to the Surs 

79. 

Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips 

28. 

The Mad Doctor 

80. 

Rugged Bear 

29. 

Russian Rhapsody 

81. 

The Poet and the Peasant 

30. 

The Cat Who Hated 

82. 

Dripalong Daffy 


People 

83. 

Little Red Riding Rabbit 

31. 

Clock Cleaners 

84. 

Magical Maestro 

32. 

Mechanical Monsters 

85. 

My Favorite Duck 

33. 

Roller Coaster Rabbit 

86. 

A Bear for Punishment 

34. 

Rabbit Seasoning 

87. 

The Cat Concerto 

35. 

Fast and Furry-ous 

88. 

Daffy Doc 

36. 

Screwy Squirrel 

89. 

Daffy Doodles 

37. 

Mad as a Mars Hare 

90. 

Buckaneer Bunny 

38. 

Knighty Knight Bugs 

91. 

Eugene the Jeep 

39. 

Swing Shift Cinderella 

92. 

Moving Day 

40. 

The Skeleton Dance 

93. 

The Sunshine Makers 

41. 

Der Fuhrer's Face 

94. 

The Two Mousketeers 

42. 

Trick or Treat 

95. 

Super Rabbit 

43. 

Cookie Camival 

96. 

Chips Ahoy 

44. 

Mickey’s Trader 

97. 

Uncle Tom’s Cabana 

45. 

I Love to Singa 

98. 

Peace on Earth 

46. 

Lonesome Ghosts 

99. 

Bacall to Arms 

47. 

AWild Hare 

100. Hollywood Steps Out 


INDEPENDENT SHORTS 


1 . 

The Wizard of Speed and 

53. 

The Farm 


Time 

54. 

Mosaic 

2. 

The Great Cognito 

55. 

Housekeeper 

3. 

Bambi Meets Godzilla 

56. 

Vixen and Hare 

4. 

Animato 

57. 

Closet Encounters of the 

5. 

KnickKnack 


Nerd Kind 

6. 

The Big Snit 

58. 

Get a Job 

7. 

Technological Threat 

59. 

How to Kiss 

8. 

Futuropolis 

60. 

Snookles 

9. 

Tin Toy 

61. 

S and Castle 

10. 

Quasi at the Quackadero 

62. 

Hot Stuff 

11 . 

Closed Mondays 

63. 

Marathon 

12. 

Broken Down Film 

64. 

Silias Mariner 

13. 

Anna and Bella 

65. 

Thank You Mask Man 

14. 

The Colléetor 

66. 

Viewmaster 

15. 

Tango 

67. 

Bridge to Your Heart 

16. 

Luxo, Jr. 

68. 

Getting Surted 

17. 

Vincent 

69. 

Sing Beast Sing 

18. 

The Street 

70. 

Face Like a Frog 

19. 

Flying Fur 

71. 

Opposites Attract 

20. 

The Critic 

72. 

La Tendresse du Maudit 

21. 

Ubu 

73. 

Chromasaurus 

22. 

Opéra 

74. 

Istanbul (Not Constantin¬ 

23. 

Stanley and the Dinosaur 


ople) 

24. 

Van Kant Danz 

75. 

French Windows 

25. 

Make Me Psychic 

76. 

Money for Nothing 

26. 

Elbowing 

77. 

Anijam 

27. 

Jumping 

78. 

Time Tripper 

28. 

Crac 

79. 

Ersatz 

29. 

AndSheWas 

80. 

Moonbird 

30. 

The Fly 

81. 

Sledgehammer 

31. 

The Cat Came Back 

82. 

The Harlem Shuffle 

32. 

25 Ways to Stop Smoking 

83. 

Every Dog’s Guide to 

33. 

Adventures of an * 


Safety 

34. 

The Devil’s Bail 

84. 

The Adventures of Nick 

35. 

Seaside Woman 


and Sugar 

36. 

Your Face 

85. 

Cat’s Cradle 

37. 

Sunbeam 

86. 

Rarg 

38. 

Furies 

87. 

Rupert and the Frog Song 

39. 

Sundae in New York 

88. 

Big Time 

40. 

Rapid Eye Movements 

89. 

Dinosaur 

41. 

Spécial Delivery 

90. 

Genius of Love 

42. 

Pas de Deux 

91. 

Adventures of an Ant 

43. 

Frank Film 

92. 

Harpae 

44. 

Lupo the Butcher 

93. 

On Land, At Sea, In The 

45. 

The Interview 


Air 

46. 

Oil Spot and Lipstick 

94. 

Man Who Planted Trees 

47. 

The Butterfly Bail 

95. 

Neighbors 

48. 

Skywhales 

96. 

Four Wishes 

49. 

Jimmy the C 

97. 

Leonardo da Vinci 

50. 

Tony DePeltire 

98. 

Red Bail Express 

51. 

Film Film Film 

99. 

(WhoWill) BeMy Gas? 

52. 

Allegretto 

100. When I’m Rich 


50 Animato! 






FEATURE FILMS 


TELEVISION SERIES 


1. Fantasia 

2. Snow White and the 

Scven Dwarfs 

3. Pinocchio 

4. Yellow Submarine 

5. Who Framed Roger 

Rabbit 

6. The Secret of NI MH 

7. Bambi 

8. The Little Mermaid 

9. Wizards 

10. Watership Down 

11. Heavy Métal 

12. 101 Dalmations 

13. Dumbo 

14. Rock & Rule 

15. Allegro Non Troppo 

16. Tron 

17. The Jungle Book 

18. Lapuu: Castle in the Sky 

19. Lady and The Tramp 

20. Warriors of the Wind 

21. Be Forever Yamato 

22. The Hobbit 

23. Peter Pan 

24. The Black Cauldron 

25. Lensman 

26. The Lord of the Rings 

27. Castle of Cagliostro 

28. The Last Unicom 

29. Three Caballeros 

30. Robin Hood 

31. Animal Farm 

32. Akira 

33. A dv en turcs of Mark 

Twain 

34. The Brave Little Toaster 

35. An American Tail 

36. Fire and Ice 

37. Phoenix 2772 

38. Raggedy Ann and Andy 

39. Galaxy Express 999 

40. Gay Puree 

41. Animalympics 

42. Cinderella 

43. Mr. Bug Goes to Town 

44. Song of the South 

45. A Boy Named Chariie 

Brown 

46. Fritz the Cat 

47. My Neighbor Totoro 

48. Retum of the King 

49. Great Mouse Détective 

50. The Rescuers 

51. Sleeping Beauty 

52. Grendel G rende 1 Grendel 

53. Iczer 

54. Pus» in Boots 

55. The Fox and the Hound 

56. The Pffcgue Dogs 

57. The Chipmunk Adventure 

58. Fantastic Planet 

50. Terra Hei 

60. Sea Prince and Fire Child 

61. The Land Before Time 

62. A Man Called Flintstone 


63. Macros s: Do You 

Remember Love? 

64. Panda and the Magic 

Serpent 

65. Dirty Pair 

66. Urusei Yatsura: Only You 

67. The Wizard of Speed and 
Time 

68. The Rescuers Down 

Under 

69. Alice in Wonderland 

70. Fun and Fancy Free 

71. The Phantom Tollbooth 

72. CrusherJoe 

73. Coonskin 

74. The Sword in the Stone 

75. Vampire Hunier D 

76. Make Mine Music 

77. Snoopy Corne Home 

78. American Pop 

79. Lupin III: Mamo 

80. Twice Upon a Time 

81. Saludos Amigos 

82. Starchaser 

83. Gulliver’s Travels 

84. The Aristocats 

85. Heavy Traffic 


1. How the Grinch Stole 

Christmas 

2. Family Dog 

3. A Chariie Brown 

Christmas 

4. It’s the Great Pumpkin, 

Chariie Brown 

5. A Christmas Carol 

6. A Doonesbury Spécial 

7. Rikki Tikki Tavi 

8. A Claymation Christmas 

9. Rudolph the Red Nosed 

Reindeer 

10. Ziggy'sGift 

11. Garfield's Nine Lives 

12. Garfield’s Halloween 

13. Mr. Magoo’s Christmas 

Carol 

14. Sport Goofy in 

Soccermania 

15. The Snowman 

16. Frosty the Snowman 

17. Chariie Brown’s AU Stars 

18. Meet the Raisins 

19. Here Cornes Garfield 

20. A Pogo Spécial Birthday 

Spécial 

21. Banjo the Woodpile Cat 

22. Here Cornes Peter 

Cottontail 

23. The Lorax 

24. The Devil and Daniel 

Mouse 

25. Rudolph’s Shiny New 

Year 


1. Bullwinkle /Rocky and 

His Friends 

2. Mighty Mouse: The New 

Adventures 

3. Dangermouse 

4. Joimy Quest 

5. George of the Jungle 

6. Beany and Cecil 

7. The Simpsons 

8. The Flintstones 

9. The Jetsons (old épisodes) 

10. Tiny Toon Adventures 

11. DuckTales 

12. Star Trek 

13. Dungeons and Dragons 

14. Starblazers 

15. Dirty Pair 

16. Robotech 

17. Count Duckula 

18. Lupin III 

19. Top Cat 

20. Kimba the White Lion 

21. Underdog 

22. Yogi Bear 

23. Alf Taies 

24. Chip and Date’s Rescue 

Rangers 


26. Kotec the White Seal 

27. A Soldier’s Taie 

28. ’Twas the Night Before 

Christmas 

29. A Cosmic Christmas 

30. The Mouse on the 

Mayflower 

31. Daffy’s Thanks for Giving 

Spécial 

32. It’s the Flashbeagle, 

Chariie Brown 

33. Garfield Goes Hollywood 

34. Christmas in July 

35. Tatteitown 

36. Really Rosie and Chicken 
Soup 

37. Tiny Tree 

38. Cathy 

39. It’s a Mystery, Chariie 

Brown 

40. Madeline 

41. Garfield's Christmas 

42. Babar and Father 

Christmas 

43. The Flintstones Meet the 

Jetsons 

44. The Bear Who Found 

Christmas 

45. Year Without Santa Claus 

46. A BC Thanksgiving 

47. Camival of the Animais 

48. The 2000 Year Old Man 

49. The Raisins: Sold Out! 

50. Will Vinton’s Claymation 

House of Horrors 


25. Adventures of the Gummi 
Bears 

26. The New Adventures of 

Winnie the Pooh 

27. TaleSpin 

28. The Misadventures of Ed 
Grimley 

29. Space Ghost 

30. Tom Terrifie 

31. Teenage Mutant Ninja 

Turtles 

32. The Real Ghostbusters 

33. Astro Boy 

34. Huckleberry Hound 

35. Maple Town 

36. Inspector Gadget 

37. Cat’s Eye 

38. Hoppity Hooper 

39. Roger Ramjet 

40. Speed Racer 

41. Fantastic Four 

42. Herculoids 

43. The Mighty Heroes 

44. Garfield and Friends 

45. The Eighth Man 

46. Scooby Doo Where Are 

You? 

47. Beetlejuice 

48. The Gumby Show 

49. Kissyfur 

50. The Alvin Show 

51. Cities of Gold 

52. Dynomutt 

53. Thundarr the Barbarian 

54. Wally Gator 

55. Thundercats 

56. The New Adventures of 

Flash Gordon 

57. Good Mo min g Spank 

58. Mobile Suit Gundam 

59. The Smurfs 

60. The Mighty Orbots 

61. B an an aman 

62. Transformera 

63. Orguss 

64. Crusader Rabbit 

65. G.I.Joe 

66. Peter Potamus 

67. Beany and Cecil (new 

épisodes) 

68. Muppet Babies 

69. Bobby’s World 

70. Insert Assembly 

71. Quick Draw McGraw 

72. Secret Squirrel 

73. Heathcliff and Friends 

74. Galaxy High 

75. The Hillbilly Bears 

76. C.O.P.S. 

77. Hong Kong Phooey 

78. The Beatles 

79. The Chariie Brown and 

Snoopy Show 

80. Bill and Ted's Excellent 

Adventures 


TELEVISION SPECIALS 


Animato! 51 






By Matthew Hasson 

Instead of reviewing some of the 
more commonly available video titles 
such as the 12th re-packaging of MGM/ 
UA Bugs Bunny collections, I thought it 
would be a refreshing departure to take a 
look at some titles that are currently avail¬ 
able only in the Laserdisc format. 

Laser dises are finally catching on in 
popularity and more stores are beginning 
to stock them. For those who are still 
unacquainted with the format, think of it 
as a giant CD player with pictures and 
sound that are superior to your standard 
VHS tape. 

Like the CD player, the laserdisc has 
the ability to jump rapidly from any one 
part of the movie to another in a matter of 
seconds and back again, unlike the slow 
hunt-and-search method one must use 
when fast forwarding or rewinding a tape. 
This is especially handy when searching 
for individual titles in animation collec¬ 
tions. 

For full-length features, the film is 
segmented into “chapters” that are ap- 
proximately 15-20 minutes in length and 
the scenes contained in each chapter are 
described on the disc’s jacket. There are 
no visible breaks between chapters. They 
only become apparent when using the 
"skipping" feature to jump ahead. 

Other features of Laserdiscs are mul¬ 
tiple soundtracks, superior spécial effects 
and "book pages," which contain photo- 
graphs and specially written text that can 
be viewed like a microfiche reader by 
simply pressing a frame-advance button. 
These are included in the spécial édition 
Criterion Collections of such classics as 
The Wizard of Oz and Forbidden 
Planet. 

Now to the reviews: 

KO-KO THE CLOWN 

Republic Pictures, 70 min. 


Recently released is this fine collec¬ 
tion of Max Fleischer’s classic Outofthe 
Inkwell sériés. It is currently available 
only on Laserdisc ffom Republic Pic¬ 
tures, the same company that issued the 
excellent Betty Boop Spécial Collectons 
Editions a few years back. Ail these 
cartoons are silent, I mean really silent. 
A lot of vintage silent cartoons hâve been 
issued on public domain tapes in recent 
years, and they usually hâve some annoy- 
ing canned music playing over them. 
This dise has absolutely nothing on the 
audio track. I recommend playing some 
unobtrusive instrumental music while 
watching this because it’s hard to get into 
a story without some kind of audio stimu¬ 
lation. 

What Ko-Ko the Clown lacks in 
sound is certainly made up for in the 
quality of the film prints. They are so well 
preserved that it's hard to believe they 
date back to the 1920*s. Both the live 
action and animation is sharp, clear and 
remarkably free of film scratches that 
plague so many films from the silent era. 
It looks as if they were taken from the 
original nitrate film stock, although that 
does not seem likely. Nitrate film tends 
to disintegrate after several years or even 
explode if kept in cans for too long a 
period. 

Interesting details to note are the 
“Inkwell Studios” logo which bears a 
strong resemblance to the King Features 
logo that appeared on the early 60’s 
Popeye TV cartoons. I was some what 
puzzled by the fact that although this 
sériés is generally knpwn as Out of the 
Inkwell , the title cards ail read Inkwell 
Imps. The major différence in the look of 
these silent films and the “Talkartoons” 
sériés that followed is the backgrounds, 
or lack thereof. Photographs are used as 
backgrounds for scenes where characters 


internet with the “real world”, but scenes 
which take place on the “drawing board” 
are usually against a stark white back- 
drop. Background objects like houses 
and trees are drawn with a minimum of 
detail. (I suppose this is to remind us that 
the action is taking place on a sheet of 
paper). For no apparent reason there are 
many scenes shot through a circular“win- 
dow”, like viewing through a telescope. 
This become an annoying cliché after a 
while. Here’s a brief rundown of some of 
the film entries, ail starring Ko-Ko (the 
correct spelling of his name is hyphen- 
ated) and his dog Fitz: 

Chemical Ko-Ko: Oddly, this col¬ 
lection begins with the last Ko-Ko car- 
toon ever made. (The character would be 
revived a couple of years later as a side- 
kick to Betty Boop). Although Ko-Ko’s 
“master” is usually Max Fleischer play¬ 
ing himself, this film has a bald bearded 
actor playing a scientist who invents a 
type of “transformation potion.” He gives 
some of it to a black janitor who is imme- 
diately transformed into caucasian. The 
janitor then tosses away his mop and 
bucket and happily walks off to join the 
world of white people. An assortment of 
metamorphosis gags follow as Ko-Ko 
sells the potion to some cartoon critters 
with amusing results. The scientist then 
takes some of the potion himself and is 
transformed into a cartoon character. The 
film ends with him being pulled into the 
inkwell with Ko-Ko and Fitz. 

Ko-Ko's Big Sale: Ko-Ko and Fitz 
are traveling salesmen. At one point Fitz 
gets ail blackened by a smokestack and 
doesa“mammy”take. It’s interesting to 
see a silent cartoon making fun of the first 
“talkie”, The Jazz Singer, which came 
outthepreviousyear. Sound would corne 
to Fleischer cartoons a few months later, 
bringing this sériés to an end. 

Ko-Ko's Hypnotism: Ko-Ko and 


52 Animato! 














Fitz are hypnotized by their master ani- 
mator (not Max Fleischer) into doing 
some tricky stunts. When the animator 
puts a pair of giant plastic eyeballs on his 
face he looks just like Judge Doom in the 
climatic final scene of Who Framed 
Roger Rabbit. 

Ko-Ko's Reward: Ko-Ko and Fitz 
go in search of Max’s missing daughter at 
an amusement park. There are some nice 
shots of them superimposed on live ac¬ 
tion footage of 1920’s amusement park 
rides. Eventually they discover Max’s 
daughter has made herself into a cartoon 
character and was with them in the ink- 
well ail along. 

THE COMPLETE SUPERMAN 
CARTOONS OF MAX AND DAVE 
FLEISCHER 

2 Disc set. Image Entertainment 
Inc. 

The title of this set should truthfully 
add “...and Famous Studios.” The first 
nine titles are Fleischer productions and 
the remaining eight were completed by 
Famous Studios under the supervision of 
Izzy Sparber, Seymour Kneitel and Dan 
Gordon. The high budget quality ismain- 
tained throughout the sériés, and the de- 
parture of the Fleischers after Terror on 
the Midway does not seem to affect the 
look or style of the films at ail. It’s 
possible Sparber and Kneitel had already 
been the true Directors, but Dave Fleis¬ 
cher always billed himself as “Director” 
even though he was actually the Pro- 
ducer. 

The first thing I want to mention 
about this collection is the quality of the 
prints. For years the only copies of these 
cartoons available on video were taken 
from old 16mm public domain prints that 
had deteriorated badly. Anyone who has 
tapes of these dark, faded prints should 
toss them in the garbage immediately and 
get this collection instead. The quality is 
outstanding. The col ors and contrast are 
so brilliant y ou would think they went 
back and re-filmed the original cels and 
backgrounds. Cable viewers who hâve 
seen some of these broadcast on the 
Disney, Channel a few months ago will 
know what I’m talking about. 

Laser dise is the best source for this 
collection, although a small company 
called Video Rarities has issued a version 
of it on VHS. (I previously had a copy of 


the tape version and the quality of the 
transfer was noticeably inferior to the 
Laser dise. It cornes with a cheap, Xeroxed 
cover and the recording looked like 2nd 
or 3rd génération. B y the way, I hâve 
recently leaned that Bosko video, whose 
quality product has beenreviwed here 
before, hâve obtained original prints of 
the Superman films and will be releasing 
them on video by the end of the year - 
supposedly in even a better condition 
than the dise.). 

Another advantage of Laserdisc is 
digitally enhanced audio, which is espe- 
cially noticeable on Volcano. The rum- 
bling of the erupting volcano and the 
earthquakes hâve a “sensurround” feel 



when played through a good set of speak¬ 
ers. 

My favorite épisode is Mechanical 
Monsters with it’s “tranformer” type ro¬ 
bots. Their design is slightly reminiscent 
of the housecleaning robots in Chuck 
Jones’ Doggone Modem. The final 
scenes take place in the villain’s under¬ 
ground factory with Lois Lane about to be 
dropped into a bubbling vat of molten 
Steel. The animation of the molten métal 
and flame shadows dancing on the cav- 
emous walls are particularly outstanding 
and may be the best animation the Fleis¬ 
cher studio has ever done. Terror on the 
Midway falls slightly below the others in 


print quality, as does The Mummy 
Strikes. The négatives for these two 
were probably unavailable, but they are 
still superior to those old, dark 16mm 
prints. 

Most of the later épisodes produced 
by Famous Studios contain World War II 
propaganda, notably Japoteurs, llth 
Hour, Secret Agent and Jungle Drains 
(which has a cameo appearance by Ad- 
olph Hitler). Of course, if Superman 
really fought in World War II he could 
hâve beaten the Nazis and Japanese 
singlehandedly and been back in time to 
write the story for the aftemoon édition. 

As for the stories, they pretty much 
hold true to the style of the Superman 
comic book stories of the 40s: Lois Lane 
gets into danger while try ing to get a story 
and Superman shows up just in time to 
rescue her. She then runs back to the 
Daily Planet office and gets ail the crédit 
for the story, leaving poor Clark Kent out 
in the cold. Clark gets scooped by Lois in 
every story except The Mummy Srtikes 
(only because she is unable to type with 
both hands in casts). It’s amazing Perry 
White doesn’t fire him. And then there’s 
his secret identity. Lois never makes the 
connection between him and Superman, 
even when he practically tells her. “How 
did you get here?” she asks Qark when 
he mysteriously appears in Superman’s 
place at the end of Magnetic Telescope. 
“Oh, thanks to Superman”, wink wink. 
The most ridiculous example cornes in 
Destruction, Inc. where Qark disguises 
himself as an elderly night watchman 
with white wig and mustache. Lois pulls 
them off and says “you can’t fool me, 
Qark Kent.” Boy, if it weren’t for those 
glasses... 

Included as a bonus at the end is a 
Warner Bros. Private Snafu cartoon, Sna- 
fuperman. Intended as a lesson on the 
importance of studying the army field 
manual, Snafu décidés he doesn’t need to 
study when he is magically endowed 
with super powers. Paramount’s original 
Superman theme music is played when 
Snafu switches identities. (Apparently 
no one was concemed about music copy¬ 
rights for mere training films). Unfortu- 
nately, the version used on this laserdisc 
is a poor, scratchy copy. A much better 
version appears on the Complété Uncen- 
sored Private Snafu vol. 1 (reviewed last 
issue ). 


Animato! 53 




Korkis* 

Animation Anecdotes 

Tldbits an4 Trivia s "' jiSIl'ft: 



One of the most successful animated 
sériés of the late sixties was The Archies. 
In fact, in 1969 at the height of the cartoon 
show's popularity, the "Archie” comic 
book title alone sold over a million copies 
a month while many other best selling 
comic books were only selling about 
300,000 copies. Part of the reason for this 
popularity was the idea to market the 
Archie characters as a Monkees-style 
singing group. Don Kirshner, the man 
behind the Monkee's song hits, was 
brought in to supervise the music. 

The Archies' biggest hit was their 
second single, "Sugar Sugar” which was 
a song that the Monkees had tumed down 
recording in 1967. 


Others Thought He 
Looked Like the Dog 


Peter Noone was a member of the 
popular British singing group Herman’s 
Hermits. The producer of the group 
thought the band would do well in America 
because Noone resembled John F. Ken¬ 
nedy. However, the other members of the 
band thought Noone looked more like 
Sherman, the boy sidekick of Mr. Peabody 
the dog from the cartoon segment of The 
Bullwinkle Show. Somehow the name 
got jumbled from Sherman to Herman 
and a record succès s was bom. 


Lip Service 


In the Disney film Spaced Invaders 
(1990), the little girl tries to hide the true 
identity of the Martians by telling an 
adult thaï the names of the three Martians 
are Clutch, Spinner, and Paddlefoot, the 
names of the three main characters on the 
syndicated cartoon show Clutch Cargo 
from 1959, where real mouths were super- 
imposed over cartoon faces. 


Abby's Animated Answer 


The "Dear Abby " column from April 
4, 1991 quotes June Foray Donovan of 
Woodland Hills, whose quote originally 
appeared ine The Wall Street Journal. 
The quote? "Happily, good things corne 


to those Kuwaits." That wordplay on the 
situation in the Middle East and the old 
phrase "Good things corne to those who 
wait" was, unbeknownst to Abby, the 
brainchild of one of the most popular 
voice talents in animation. June Foray 
has done the voices for Rocky the Flying 
Squirrel, Witch Hazel, Tweety's Granny, 
and countless others. 


Should Disney Worrv 


Kitty Kelly, renowned for her 
unathorized biographies of Frank Sinatra 
and Nancy Reagan told a reporter in April 
1991 that "Hell, for a million bucks, I'd 
write about Donald Duck." 


No Monkeying Around 


When director Doug Wildey was 
involved with the Saturday moming ani¬ 
mated sériés Return to the Planet of the 
Apes in 1975, he ran up against NBC's 
"Emulative Cause.” Basically, the clause 
stated that something from an animated 
sériés needed to be eliminated if a six 
year old child could physically emulate 
what he sees on the cartoon. Wildey 
discovered that the network would not 
allow him to equip the apes with machine 
guns or knives or clubs or pistols or hand 
grenades because of the fear that a six 
year old child might be able to emulate 
the action. (The network did relent some- 
what by allowing rifles to be strapped to 
ape soldiers' backs but only if they were 
never used.) 

Finally, in desperation, Wildey asked 
if it would be OK to use Howitzers. The 
network agreed that they could not think 
of a way a six year old could operate a 
Howitzer so Wildey loaded the sériés 
with the weapon and stated that "we had 
them on caissons following jeeps and we 
had them blowing away mountain tops 
and we had Howitzers going ail the time 
because the Emulative Clause stopped at 
a Howitzer." 


Blooge and Vroop 


The Fox télévision sériés Parker Le¬ 
wis Can’t Lose is noted for its surreal 


Sound effects. The live action sériés 
about the adventures of a high school 
student and his friends actually uses sound 
effects from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon 
library to enhance the show. In fact, 
many of the sound engineers for the sé¬ 
riés corne from an animated background 
and are familiar with sound eues like 
bloogle , whistle splat , and vroop. 


OyVeyî 


When An American Tail was re- 
leased in 1986, there were several promo- 
tional tie-ins. One of the most visible was 
with McDonald's where if you bought 
McDonald's gift certificates you could 
get a free American Tail Christmas stock- 
ing. The only trouble was that An Ameri¬ 
can Tail was the story of a Jewish mouse, 
Feivel Mousekewitz. 

McDonald’s quickly withdrew the 
offer and substituted story books which 
imocally misspelled Feivel's name. (Ac¬ 
tually, Feivel's name is also misspelled 
on the official crédits for the film as well 
so it's hard to totally blâme McDonald’s 
for that slip. 


The Real Natasha 


Sally Kellerman portrays Natasha 
Fatale in the live action film Boris and 
Natasha. The character is from the ani¬ 
mated Bullwinkle show created by Jay 
Ward. 

"Mr. Ward was something of a re¬ 
cluse," said Kellerman, "but there was a 
Bullwinkle shop in Los Angeles [The 
Dudley Do-Right Emporium] and I was 
researching my Natasha part so I went in 
there one day anonymously to look around, 
and a woman waited on me who tumed 
out to be Mrs. Ward. When I fmished 
shopping, ego took over and I introduced 
myself. Mrs. Ward said 'Oh, but you are 
Natasha! My husband must meet you.' 
Then she got out Mr. Ward, and he came 
out and was polite when she said I was to 
be Natasha but he was certainly not en- 
thusiastic." 

You can send Jim Korkis your own 
animation anecdotes care of Animato! 


54 Animato! 

























by Thelma Scumm 
Hello, drearies! I’m back again! 
Thank you ail so much for the cards and 
letters urging my retum! In fact, beacuse 
of your fabulous letters, the evil editor 
has agreed to give little old me another 
full page for my obnoxious ramblings! 
Ooh, I am so excited! 

Well! Lots of important and exciting 
gossip and news to share with you this 
time, so let’s get started. 

Disney's deal with John Las se ter of 
Pixar famé seems to be doing well. 
They’ve got him working on a new Com¬ 
puter animated feature for them. Let’s 
just hope it isn’t Tron II. John, I*m sure, 
is mucho happy to be leaving behind 
those commercials - nice though they 
were - to be able to do some real stuff with 
stories and characters and no commercial 
purpose. Oops! Sillyme! He’s working 
for Disney, isn’t he? 

Disney’s next big feature, aimed for 
1992, is Aladdin. Of course! Once 
Richard Williams announced that after 
Roger Rabbit he was finally going to be 
able to complété TheThief and the Cob- 
bler, whoosh! In rushes Disney with an 
Arabian fairy taie. Par for the course (see 
John Cawley’s Get Animated! column 
this issue). B y the way, it is supposed to 
be a big secret, but remember you read it 
here first: Robin Williams is doing the 
voice of the genie for the Aladdin flick. 
So much for that secret. 

Now that both Fantasia and Rescu- 
ers Down Under are out on tape, can 
Snow White be far behind? Hey, do you 
suppose those Disney folk hâve decided 
to forget the existence of Black Caul- 
dron and Fox and the Hound? 

Disney has also decided against mak- 
ing a sequel to Little Mermaid and is 


instead working on a Saturday moming 
TV sériés about Ariel before she meets 
Prince Eric. Don’t expect anything until 
Fall of ’92. Roger Rabbit, meanwhile, 
will also hâve a prequel due out in *93! 

Big suit in Simpson land! It seems 
that Klasky Csupo, the studio that outbid- 
ded everyone else for the animation (by 
not being unionized) is having, well, 
employée trouble, the animators are su- 
ing the big KG (the boss of whom looks 
amazingly like Homer ’s boss at the Power 
Plant) for overtime wages owed. 

The inside scoop about The 
Simpsons by the way is that its success is 
due more to Jim Brooks (producer) rather 
than “creator” Matt Groening. Brooks 
really fleshed out Groening’s characters 
and he really oversees ail scripts (which 
of course are what makes Simpsons so 
spécial). Groening, by the way, does not 
own the rights to the characters and as 
such makes practically nothing off of ail 
the merchandizing. Hey, Matt, does the 
name “Oswald the Lucky Rabbit” mean 
anything to you? 

Speaking of Simpsons, the reason 
the show started three months later than 
planned was that the animation was sent 
elsewhere (costs you know) and for some 
strange reason, the animators thought the 
show wasn’tfunny enough . They added 
ail sorts of sick humor to it, completely 
misunderstanding the satirical éléments, 
and as a resuit, over 95% of the first 
season had to be scrapped and redone. 
Then they had problems with the network 
censors who couldn't get it out of their 
heads that this wasn't a children's car- 
toon. 

So what’s Wonderkid Steven 
Spielberg up to these days besides Ameri¬ 
can Tail II: The Wrath of Feivel? 


Believe it or not, he’s working with Berke 
Breathed to make an animated Opus and 
Bill the Cat adventure (ack!). Let’s just 
hope that he doesn’t décidé that the two 
need “cutening up.” 

Speaking of lowestcommondenomi- 
nators, can you believe the new Hanna 
Barbarian: Yo, Yogi! I am not making 
this up. Once more, we get child versions 
of adults cartoon characters hamming it 
up for our collective yuks. Yuk. Also 
keep an eye out for the new expensive 
Hanna Barbera coffee table art book. 
This is not a book to be tossed aside 
lightly. It should be thrown with great 
force. 

Also I’m told that in the upcoming 
Tom and Jerry feature film, the two 
antagonists not only work together to 
fight evil and injustice (and promote po- 
litical correcmess) but also talk! Is noth¬ 
ing sacred? Why not just use two other 
characters? If they look like Tom and 
Jerry and act like the Care Bears, what’s 
the point? For that matter, bring back 
Pixie and Dixie! 

Ooh, and say, hâve you seen John 
Kricfalusi's newest, Ren and Stimpy? 
(On Nickelodeon). It was supposed to 
run for a limited time and by the second 
week, it was al read y showing a rerun! 
My, my! Just like John's Beany and 
Cecil! History repeats again. It seems 
that Kricfalusi has wonderful designs (I 
just love his artwork) and his animation is 
smooth and so original but he lacks some- 
thing when it cornes to comic timing and 
storytelling (and meeting deadlines)! Ac- 
cording to my anonymous source in his 
studio, the main problem is that he sur- 
rounds himself with y es men who think 
he's a genius. John, y a shoulda stayed 
with Raplh Bakshi a bit longer. 


Animato! 55 








Neil Papiano, the hotshot lawyer who 
represented Peggy Lee in her case against 
Disney, is representing Alex Anderson in 
his case to protect his interests in charac- 
ters controlled by the Jay Ward studio. 
Anderson, as you probably do not know, 
created Dudley Do-Right in 1948 and 
Rocky and Bullwinkle in 1950. 

It seems that Anderson was a close 
firiend of Ward from the 5th grade until 
Ward died in 1989. It was he who con- 
vinced Ward to help him develop low 
cost animation for TV and they made Cru- 
sader Rabbit.. It was during this time 
that they made unsold pilots that starred 
Rocky, Bullwinkle and Dudley. 

In 1957, Anderson entered into a 
written agreement that gave Ward half 
interest in characters Anderson owned. 
Anderson received compensation for his 
characters until Ward's death in 1989. 
Anderson States that he wasn't concemed 
when the payments stopped until he read 
aboutDisney paying millions for the video 
rights to his characters. Oooh! What a 
brave man to go against Disney lawyers! 

Meanwhile, Ted Key, who created 
Peabody and Sherman for Ward and is 
best known for his comic strip "Hazel," is 
also upset that he also has not been paid 
anything in years by the Ward studio. 

Sigh. Is there no one to believe in 
any more? 

Certainly not this " Animated Stroies 
From the New Testament " sériés of vide- 
otapes that are being shamelessly plugged 
on cable. Former Disney animator Rich¬ 
ard Rich (Ritchie Rich?!!!) gives us the 
miracles of Jésus brought to life with 
great animated spécial effects! Seeblue 
eyed caucasian Jésus and his ail Ameri¬ 
can disciples beat the evil hook nosed 
evilJews who killed Jésus! What is this, 
David Duke's version of the Bible? No 
thanks! Not only is the animation bad in 
these things, so is the moralizing by these 
bigots. And say, does anyone know where 
the profits from these sales go? 

Well, Tiny Toons is now in its sec¬ 
ond year, and Tm still disappointed. It 
coulda been a contendah! I don't expect 
quality from My LittlePony, but with the 
budget and the talent Wamers has as- 
sembled, you’d think they'd be willing to 
take a few more risks, huh? 

I’m talking about real chances, not 
the Mad magazine version of satire ("Did 
you see how we made fun of that TV 


commercial? Huh?Didja? Pretty brave 
of us, huh?") I mean real satire, not 
simple parody. Real satire is The 
Simpsons and Bakshi’s Mighty Mouse. 

There are just too many cutseypoo 
epsiodes where the moral of the story 
takes precedence over the humor or the 
story. Can you imagine the guys at Ter¬ 
mite Terrace saying "You know, Great 
Piggy Bank Robbery is a great script, but 
shouldn't we put in something about crime 
being wrong?" 

I personally thought Dave Mackey’s 
guide in the last issue was very kind. 
There are some very good épisodes (I 
love the celebrity cameos in Hollywood 
Plucky and Day for Knight and some of 
the quickie bits in KACME-TV and the 
whole concept behind Who Bopped Bugs 
Bunny? - in fact, the latter seemed to me 
like a great cartoon attempting to break 
out of the Tiny Toons mold and head 
straight for Mighty Mouse land! (It was 
after ail directed by MM alumni Kent 
Butterworth). Well, even for ail my criti- 
cisms, it's still the best aftemoon cartoons 
show and Tm glad it beat the awful Cap- 
tain Planet for the Emmy. 

Oh, and speaking of Termite Ter- 
race, there may very well be a Termite 
Terrace feature film in our future! It 


seems that Chuck Jones is working with 
Director Joe Dante (whose Gremlins 
films are just full of animation in-jokes) 
are working on a script based on Jones' 
Chuck Amuck book. 

Let's see, what else canri skewer? 
Oooh, I just love having two pages to play 
with! (Or did I hear my Senator say that?) 

One of my insiders tells me that the 
animators working on American Tail II 
submitted a suggested list of titles for the 
film (eventually "Feivel Goes West" was 
chosen), but I think some of these are 
better: A Fistful of Mice, the Texas 
Chainsaw Mouseacre, Little Mouse on 
the Prarie, Feivel Get You Six, Saturday 
Night Feivel, Of Mice and Mice, Singing 
in the Drain, and The Low Ranger. 

By the way, Hanna Barbera are work¬ 
ing on a new film called The Endan- 
gered - no one tells a gossip anything, I 
swear - but I was able to get my hand on 
some of the character designs and I must 
admit they look pretty good! IVeplaced 
some here for you. Shhh! Don’t tell 
anyone you saw it here first! 

Well, that’s ail for this time. Be sure 
to keep those cards and letters coming - 
remember that I keep ail my sources 
confidential - and (ail together now) 
TURN OUT THAT LIGHT! 



56 Animato! 










The Best in Animated Reading from 

GET ANIMATED! 

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CARTOON SUPERSTARS 
$20 

John Cawley & Jim Korkis 

The 25 Superstars of this century: Alvin & the Chipmunks, Betty 
Boop, Bugs Bunny, Casper, Coyote & Road Runner, Daffy Duck, 

Donald Duck, Droopy, Félix, Flintstones, Heckle & Jeckle, 

Huckleberry Hound, Mickey Mouse, Mighty Mouse, Mr. Magoo, 

Pink Panther, Popeye, Porky Pig, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Roger 
Rabbit, Scooby Doo, Smurfs, Tom & Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, 
and Yogi Bear. Each given full attention: How they were created; 

Their best moments; How They’ve changed through the years; What 
they did off screen. Fully illustrated. Trade paperback 
"There is no other volume thaï covers ail of the major figures of 
American theatrical and TV animated cartoons so thoroughly. " 

- Animation Magazine (Fred Patten) 

HOW TO CREATE ANIMATION - $20 

John Cawley & Jim Korkis 

A book that finally looks at how modem animation is produced. 
From THE LITTLE MERMAID to Saturday Morning, today’s top 
creators discuss how they got into the business, what their job is, 
what an average day is like, projects they loved, projects they hated, 
and finally their recommendations on how to enter the field today. 
Character designers, storyboard artists, layout artists, background 
painters, animators, directors and producers are included from 
numerous studios. Newer names like Glen Keane, Don Bluth, Scott 
Shaw!, and Darrel Van Citters are joined by such golden âge talent as 
Bob Clampett, Jack Hannah, Chuck Jones and Bill Scott. Fully 
illustrated. Trade paperback. 

"This is the most significant, most up-to-date book on making 
cartoons today. " 

- Comics Buyers’ Guide (Bob Miller) 

CARTOON QUARTERLY #1 (1988) - $10 

Full color newstand magazine. Includes articles on Mickey Mouse, Jonny Quest, Garfïeld, Superman, the Flintstones, Pepe 
Le Pew, Beany & Cecil, Footrot Flats and more by such authorities as Leonard Maltin, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, John 
Cawley, Jim Korkis, Jerry Beck and Scott Shaw! 

GET ANIMATED REVIEW #1 (1989) - $6 

Subtitled "Reviews of Record on the Art and Industry of Animation," this publication offered dozens of reviews on theatrical 
features and shorts, télévision, cable, home video, books, magazines, audio and more. 

ANIMATION MAGAZINE #1 (1987) - $50 

Rare première issue from Expanded Entertainment. Also the program for the 2nd Los Angeles International Animation 
Célébration, it has information on the films being screened and talents being honored. Less than 20 copies left! 

Ail prices include lst class postage - Sorry, no orders outside the U.S. 

Send orders to: 

GET ANIMATED! PO Box 1458, Burbank, CA 91507 


Animation Professionals: 

Don’t be left out! There’s still time to be included in Get Animated!’s Who’s Who of Animation. If you 
currently work in or hâve ever worked in any aspect of animation, write for an entry form today! 










VINTAGE ANIMATION ART 




• Rare Disney animation celluloïds 

• Original background paintings 

• Pastel "storyboard" drawings 

• Vintage pencil animation drawings 

• Catalog available on request 

An exclusive private gallery since 1978, 
specializing in museum/investment quality 
vintage Disney studio animation art 
for the disceming collector. 




-By appointment- 

2005 Palo Verde Avenue, Suite 205 
Long Beach, CA 90815 


SILVER STONE 

GALLERY 


Vintage 
Animation Art 

(213) 598-7500 

Bought & Sold